Haplogroup N and its related Uralic Languages and Cultures

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Haplogroup N’s founding father may have lived as long as 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. This common father may have lived in today’s South-East-Asia. The Y-DNA haplogroup N has a wide distribution primarily in Northern Eurasia often associated (but not necessarily) with current and earlier Uralic speakers in Europe. It is a myth that haplogroup N in  Europe is from the Huns and the Mongols. To quote Rootsi at the University of Tartu, Estonia who is leading the research on hg N. The age of hg N3 in the Finnic-Ugric speaking population in eastern Europe suggests a much earlier arrival from the east. “From the archaeological point of view, hg N3 is spread in Europe in the area of comb-ceramic culture. It is not, however, obvious that the spread of the two can be temporarily connected, because STR diversity-based calculations of the time depth of hg N3 among the Finn-speaking European population suggest expansion time before-around the end of Pleistocene – that is long before the rise of the comb-ceramic culture in the 4th millennium BCE or around 6,000 years ago.” ref

Ancient mDNA “N1a1a1” and Pottery from Turkey to Europe? People likely descended from central Anatolian populations with Pottery and mDNA “N1a1a1” such as Boncuklu/Çatalhöyük, spread to central Europe through NW Anatolia thousands of years later?

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Pottery moves from China to Siberia, then to the Middle East, and Europe

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“Geographic dispersal routes of (A) AMH out of Africa migration, and (B) secondary worldwide human expansions, deduced from the age and geographic localization of L3 and N(xR) mtDNA haplogroups including Lineages O and S from Australia.” ref

Carriers of Mitochondrial DNA Macrohaplogroup N Lineages Reached Australia around 50,000 Years Ago following a Northern Asian Route

“The modern human colonization of Eurasia and Australia is mostly explained by a single-out-of-Africa exit following a southern coastal route throughout Arabia and India. However, dispersal across the Levant would better explain the introgression with Neanderthals, and more than one exit would fit better with the different ancient genomic components discovered in indigenous Australians and in ancient Europeans. The existence of an additional Northern route used by modern humans to reach Australia was previously deduced from the phylogeography of mtDNA macrohaplogroup N. Here, we present new mtDNA data and new multidisciplinary information that add more support to this northern route.” ref

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Ancestral mitochondrial N lineage from the Neolithic ‘green’ Sahara

“Map of Africa with the alternative models”

“Because Africa’s climate hampers DNA preservation, knowledge of its genetic variability is mainly restricted to modern samples, even though population genetics dynamics and back-migrations from Eurasia may have modified haplotype frequencies, masking ancient genetic scenarios. Thanks to improved methodologies, ancient genetic data for the African continent are now increasingly available, starting to fill in the gap. Here, reserchers present newly obtained mitochondrial genomes from two ~7000-year-old individuals from Takarkori rock-shelter, Libya, representing the earliest and first genetic data for the Sahara region. These individuals carry a novel mutation motif linked to the haplogroup N root. Our result demonstrates the presence of an ancestral lineage of the N haplogroup in the Holocene “Green Sahara,” associated with a Middle Pastoral (Neolithic) context.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Postglacial genomes from foragers across Northern Eurasia reveal prehistoric

mobility associated with the spread of the Uralic and Yeniseian languages

Abstract

“The North Eurasian forest and forest-steppe zones have sustained millennia of sociocultural connections among northern peoples. We present genome-wide ancient DNA data for 181 individuals from this region spanning the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age. We find that Early to Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer populations from across the southern forest and forest-steppes of Northern Eurasia can be characterized by a continuous gradient of ancestry that remained stable for millennia, ranging from fully West Eurasian in the Baltic region to fully East Asian in the Transbaikal region. In contrast, cotemporaneous groups in far Northeast Siberia were genetically distinct, retaining high levels of continuity from a population that was the primary source of ancestry for Native Americans. By the mid-Holocene, admixture between this early Northeastern Siberian population and groups from Inland East Asia and the Amur River Basin produced two distinctive populations in eastern Siberia that played an important role in the genetic formation of later people. Ancestry from the first population, Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Cisbaikal_LNBA), is found substantially only among Yeniseian-speaking groups and those known to have admixed with them. Ancestry from the second, Yakutian Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Yakutia_LNBA), is strongly associated with present-day Uralic speakers. We show how Yakutia_LNBA ancestry spread from an east Siberian origin ~4.5kya, along with subclades of Y-chromosome haplogroup N occurring at high frequencies among present-day Uralic speakers, into Western and Central Siberia in communities associated with Seima-Turbino metallurgy: a suite of advanced bronze casting techniques that spread explosively across an enormous region of Northern Eurasia ~4.0kya. However, the ancestry of the 16 Seima-Turbino-period individuals–the first reported from sites with this metallurgy–was otherwise extraordinarily diverse, with partial descent from Indo-Iranian-speaking pastoralists and multiple hunter-gatherer populations from widely separated regions of Eurasia. Our results provide support for theories suggesting that early Uralic speakers at the beginning of their westward dispersal where involved in the expansion of Seima-Turbino metallurgical traditions, and suggests that both cultural transmission and migration were important in the spread of Seima-Turbino material culture.” ref

Haplogroup N from China to Fennoscandia: Migrations and Relationship of Language (Dene-Yeniseian and Uralic), DNA, and Cultures

24,000 Years Old Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) migrations? Became: Proto-Afroasiatic, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, Proto-Transeurasian, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-Na-Dene, Proto-Caucasian, Sumerian, Proto-Austronesian, and the Basque language

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Several linguists and geneticists suggest that the Uralic languages are related to various Siberian languages and possibly also some languages of northern Native Americans. A proposed family is named Uralo-Siberian, it includes Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskimo–Aleut (Inuit), possibly Nivkh, and Chukotko-Kamchatkan. Haplogroup Q is found in nearly all Native Americans and nearly all of the Yeniseian Ket people (90%).” ref, ref

You can find some form of Shamanism, among Uralic, Transeurasian, Dené–Yeniseian, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskaleut languages.

My speculations of shamanism are its dispersals, after 24,000 to 4,000 years ago, seem to center on Lake Baikal and related areas. To me, the hotspot of Shamanism goes from west of Lake Baikal in the “Altai Mountains” also encompassing “Lake Baikal” and includes the “Amur Region/Watershed” east of Lake Baikal as the main location Shamanism seems to have radiated out from. 

Shamanism Among the Peoples of the North: Uralic, Transeurasian, Dené–Yeniseian, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskaleut languages

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“Tep003 – Tepecik-Çiftlik Höyük, N1b1a, 8419 years ago, Turkey – Northwest_Anatolia_N (Ceramic)

 I0708 – Barcın Höyük, N1b1a, 8101 years ago, Turkey – Northwest_Anatolia_N (Ceramic)

BAJ001 – Ba‘ja(), N1b1a, 8850 years ago, Jordan – Levant_Neolithic” ref

On the origin of Y-chromosome haplogroup N1b

“A possible scenario explaining the phylogeographic pattern of hg N1b is that the subclusters N1b-A and N1b-E might have diverged from a common ancestor anywhere in Siberia approximately 15 ky ago (with upper bound of divergence time, T_D, between these subclusters estimated (according to Zhivotovsky) as 14.7±5.9 ky). According to STR variation, expansion of Northwest Siberian/Uralic/Northeast European branch, N1b-E, may have occurred approximately 7 kya and the expansion of South Siberian branch N1b-A about 5 kya. Divergence time between South Siberian and Northwest Siberian/Uralic N1b-A haplotypes is 4 ky (T_D=4.0±1.0 ky), so this suggests that expansion of N1b-A lineages in Northwest Siberia and Urals (about 3 kya) might have occurred right after their migrations from South Siberia. Future studies of Y-chromosome variation using a combined STR-SNP approach may enable a better definition of geographic origin of N1b-P43 mutation.” ref

“According to our data, the age of STR variation within hg N1b as a whole is about 12 ky (12.1±4.4 ky). This age was estimated as the average squared difference in the number of repeats between all the current chromosomes and the founder haplotype, averaged over microsatellite loci and divided by the effective mutation rate of 0.00069 per locus per 25 years. We used the median haplotypes (formed by the median values of the repeat scores at each microsatellite locus within each hg) as the founding ones. The age of subcluster N1b-A in Siberian and Uralic populations is 4.2±1.1 ky, with the age prevailing in South Siberia in comparison with Northwest Siberia and Urals (4.8±1.7 vs 3.1±0.9 ky, respectively). However, the age of subcluster N1b-E in Northwest Siberian, Uralic, and Northeast European Russian populations is much higher, being equal to 6.8±2.6 ky. Subcluster N1b-E differs sharply from N1b-A in its median repeat scores at four loci (DYS19, DYS385a,b, DYS389II, and DYS392), thus suggesting that N1b-E chromosomes descended from single founders with multiple jumps at several loci, thus causing a possible shift in statistical estimates that assumes a step-wise mutation model.” ref 

“Mirabal et al have noted that their results of Y-chromosome haplogroup (hg) N1b analysis challenge earlier findings and suggest that N1b-P43 mutation may have occurred in the Uralic range rather than in Siberia and much earlier than has been proposed (12.9±4.1 instead of 5.2±2.7 kya). Mirabal et al performed high-resolution haplotyping of Y chromosomes from populations in the East European region of Russia and the Uralic mountains and compared them with relevant previously published data. Meanwhile, they did not find it possible to compare the data obtained with South Siberian data set, so we are intending here to make up this deficiency. In addition to the data obtained by Mirabal et al, we have used the data on hg N1b diversity of Northwest Siberian Khants and Mansi and Russian Pomors as well as our published data on N1b diversity in South Siberians (Altaians, Shors, Tuvinians, Tofalars, Sojots, Khakassians, Buryats, Mongolians and Kalmyks) and Central and Northeast Siberians (Yakuts, Evenks, Evens and Koryaks). In the latter study, 83 individuals were found as belonging to hg N1b. Median-joining analysis of 53 N1b haplotypes revealed in 168 individuals from Siberia, Ural mountains and Eastern Europe shows (as in the previous studies) a well-resolved bipartite distribution of haplotypes with separate Siberian and European branches, N1b-A and N1b-E, respectively (Figure 1). Previous studies have shown that South Siberian subcluster, N1b-A, may have originated first, later giving rise to the derived Northwest Siberian/Uralic/Northeast European subcluster, N1b-E. However, new data presented here do not allow resolving the problem of geographic origin of hg N1b ancestor because the putative ancestral N1b haplotype (indicated by a star in Figure 1) appears to be equally widespread both in South Siberia (among Khakassians, Altaians, Mongolians, Tofalars, Evenks and Shors) and in Northwest Siberia (among Khants and Mansi). It is noteworthy, however, that earlier haplotype preceding subcluster N1b-E in the network is the haplotype revealed in Khants, pointing to the possibility of Northwest Siberian origin of the N1b-E subcluster.” ref

“Haplogroup N1a – Arabian Peninsula and Northeast Africa. Found also in Central Asia and Southern Siberia. This branch is well attested in ancient people from various cultures of Neolithic Europe, from Hungary to Spain, and among the earliest farmers of Anatolia. Rare unclassified haplogroup N* has been found among fossils belonging to the Cardial and Epicardial culture (Cardium pottery) and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. A rare unclassified form of N has been also been reported in modern Algeria.” ref

“Haplogroups N1a and I have never been found in ancient samples from Paleolithic or Mesolithic Europe. The oldest known N1a samples were found in Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures from central Anatolia. Kılınç et al. (2016) retrieved two N1a1a1 samples from the Boncuklu site (8300 BCE), as well as two N1a1a1 and two N1b1a from the Tepecik-Çiftlik site (± 6400 BCE). Mathieson et al. (2015) also found one N1a1a1 and three N1a1a1a from the Barcın and Menteşe sites (± 6350 BCE) in north-western Anatolia. The paternal lineages that accompanied them belonged to mostly Y-haplogroup G2a2, but also to C1a2, I2c, H2 and J2a. N1a lineages were also found in practically all Early Neolithic cultures in Europe. However, so far it has never been found in the Fertile Crescent itself, although N1b was identified by Lazaridis et al. (2016) in the Mesolithic Natufian culture in Israel. Based on current evidence, it would seem that the roots of haplogroup N1a are in Anatolia, whence it spread with Neolithic farmers to Europe, and perhaps also to the Caucasus region.” ref

“The earliest evidence of N1a in Europe comes from the Early Neolithic, when it suddenly pops up in 16 of the 146 skeletons tested to date from various sites of the Starčevo culture (7% of all samples) in Croatia and Hungary, and especially the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Germany (see Adler 2012 and Brandt 2013), where it reaches the spectacularly high frequency of 12.75%. This may have been due to a founder effect among LBK farmers, but it is noteworthy that later Neolithic cultures in the region kept high levels of N1a compared to modern Germany. That included samples from the Rössen (9%) and Schöningen (3%) cultures, as well as the Baalberge (5%) and Salzmünde (7%) groups of the Funnelbeaker culture, spanning the whole Neolithic and early Chalcolithic periods. These German samples belonged to the N1a1a, N1a1a1 and N1a1a3 subclades. From the time of the Corded Ware culture, representing the advance of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Pontic Steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia, haplogroup N1a suddenly disappears from the record in Central Europe, and would never come back.” ref

“N1a was also found in the Alföld culture in Hungary, an eastern branch of the Linear Pottery culture, as well as in Megalithic France. Nowadays N1a is also found in modern Cushitic populations of East Africa. In fact, the same N1a1a3 that was found in Neolithic Germany is now found essentially in Somalia and Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa. This region has the world’s highest frequency of Y-haplogroup T, the greatest diversity of Y-haplogroup E1b1b, and also a substantial percentage of Y-haplogroup J1, three paternal lineages thought to have been found among early agriculturalists from the Fertile Crescent alongside Y-haplogroup G2 – four of the “Neolithic founder Y-DNA haplogroups”. Therefore it is possible that N1a originated with Y-haplogroup G2, J1 and/or T during the Upper Paleolithic, then spread with all four haplogroups after G2a converged with E1b1b and T in the Fertile Crescent later during the Neolithic period.” ref

“N1a1b might have expanded directly from Anatolia to the Caucasus and northern Iran, where it developed N1a1b1 (found in Iran today) and N1a1b2 (haplogroup I). In this scenario, R1b cattle herders from eastern Anatolia would have absorbed mtDNA I by intermarriages with Caucasian women on the way to the Pontic Steppe. This would have happened with other mtDNA lineages too (see maternal lineages corresponding to haplogroup R1b). Whatever the exact route and timing, haplogroup I was almost certainly found in the northwest Caucasus when the Maykop culture appeared around 3700 BCE, and would consequently have become part of the Proto-Indo-European tribes before the great migrations to Europe and Central Asia. Haplogroup N1 was found in the Maykop (or adjacent Novosvobodnaya) culture by Nedoluzhko et al. (2015), while remains of the Yamna culture in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe itself have so far yielded haplogroups N1a1a and I1a.” ref

What were the original mtDNA lineages of Neolithic R1b tribes in the Near East?

“R1b tribes are thought to have domesticated cattle in that region 10,500 years ago, yet only moved across the Caucasus some time between 7,500 and 6,500 years ago. For three or four millennia, semi-nomadic R1b herders were bound to have intermingled with some of the Near Eastern or Caucasian neighbours. One way of determining what mt-haplogroups R1b tribes carried at the very beginning of the Neolithic, is to compare the above haplogroups with those of African ethnic groups known to possess elevated percentages of R1b-V88. The best studied group are the Fulani, whose mtDNA include three European-looking haplogroups H, J1b1a, U5 and V making up about 15% of their total maternal lineages. These haplogroups have been identified in all four Central African countries sampled, confirming a strong correlation with haplogroup R1b.” ref

“However, their H, V and U5 could have come from the Berbers of Northwest Africa. The Berbers also carry R1b-V88, but it’s possible that some of it came from different Neolithic migrations, including a re-expansion from Iberia, as Berbers carry H1, H3, V1a1a, V5 and U5b1b1, lineages that are all found in the Iberian peninsula. U5b1b1 descends from Mesolithic West Europeans, but at present it is not yet clear how the other haplogroups reached Iberia or Northwest Africa. One hypothesis is that they came from the Near East during the Neolithic, perhaps with R1b-V88 tribes. African R1b-V88 and Eurasian haplogroup R1b-P297 split roughly 10,000 years ago, almost certainly in Eastern Europe, where they carried mostly mt-haplogroup U5. Toward the end of the last glaciation, some R1b men would have migrated from Eastern Europe to the region of modern Kurdistan accompanied by women belonging to mtDNA U5. Soon after they arrived J1b1a (and maybe V) would have been the first indigenous Near Eastern lineages assimilated by R1b tribes. R1b-V88 might have assimilated H1 and H3 women in the Levant before moving to North Africa, but that remains highly hypothetical.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“N1a became particularly prominent in this debate when a team led by Wolfgang Haak analyzed skeletons from Linear Pottery Culture sites. The Linear Pottery Culture is credited with the first farming communities in Central Europe, marking the beginning of Neolithic Europe in the region some 7500 years ago. As of 2010, mitochondrial DNA analysis has been conducted on 42 specimens from five locations. Seven of these ancient individuals were found to belong to haplogroup N1a. A separate study analyzed 22 skeletons from European hunter-gatherer sites dated 13,400-2,300 BCE. Most of these fossils carried the mtDNA haplogroup U, which was not found in any of the Linear Pottery Culture sites. Conversely, N1a was not identified in any of the hunter-gatherer fossils, indicating a genetic distinction between Early European Farmers and late European hunter-gatherers.” ref

“Haak’s team concludes that “the transition to farming in central Europe was accompanied by a substantial influx of people from outside the region.” However, they note that haplogroup frequencies in modern Europeans are substantially different from early farming and late hunter-gatherer populations. This indicates that “the diversity observed today cannot be explained by admixture between hunter-gatherers and early farmers alone” and that “major demographic events continued to take place in Europe after the early Neolithic. The N1 subclade has also been found in various other fossils that were analyzed for ancient DNA, including specimens associated with the Starčevo (N1a1a1, Alsónyék-Bátaszék, Mérnöki telep, 1/3 or 33%), Linearbandkeramik/Linear Pottery Culture (N1a1a1a3, Szemely-Hegyes, 1/1 or 100%; N1a1b/N1a1a3/N1a1a1a2/N1a1a1/N1a1a1a, Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld, 6/22 or ~27%), Alföld Linear Pottery (N1a1a1, Hejőkürt-Lidl, 1/2 or 50%), Transdanubian Late Neolithic (N1a1a1a, Apc-Berekalja, 1/1 or 100%), Protoboleráz (N1a1a1a3, Abony, Turjányos-dűlő, 1/4 or 25%), Iberia Early Neolithic cultures (N1a1a1, Els Trocs, 1/4 or 25%), Rinaldone–Gaudo Eneolithic cultures (N1a1a1a3, Monte San Biagio, 1/1 or 100%).” ref

“In 2010, researchers led by Palanichamy conducted a genetic and phylogeographic analysis of N1a. Based on the results, they conclude that some of the LBK samples were indigenous to Europe while others may have resulted from ‘leapfrog’ colonization. Deguilloux’s team agreed with Haak’s conclusion on a genetic discontinuity between ancient and modern Europeans. However, they consider demic diffusion, cultural diffusion, and long-distance matrimonial exchanges all equally plausible explanations for the current genetic findings. Seven of 42 skeletons from Linear Pottery Culture (Linearbandkeramik) sites were found to be members of the N1a haplogroup (see Neolithic European). N1a was also identified in skeletal remains within a 6200-year-old megalithic long mound near Prissé-la-Charrière, France. A 2500-year-old fossil of a Scytho-Siberian in the Altai Republic, the easternmost representative of the Scythians, was found to be a member of N1a1. A study of a 10th and 11th century Hungarians found that N1a1a1 was present in high-status individuals but absent from commoners. One of thirteen skeletons analyzed from a medieval cemetery dated 1250-1450 AD in Denmark was found to be a member of subclade N1a1a.” ref

“Haplogroup N1a – Arabian Peninsula and Northeast Africa. Found also in Central Asia and Southern Siberia. This branch is well attested in ancient people from various cultures of Neolithic Europe, from Hungary to Spain, and among the earliest farmers of Anatolia.” ref

“The Comb Ceramic culture or Pit-Comb Ware culture, was a northeast European culture characterized by its Pit–Comb Ware. It existed from around 4200 BCE to around 2000 BCE. The bearers of the Comb Ceramic culture are thought to have still mostly followed the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, with traces of early agriculture. The distribution of the artifacts found includes Finnmark (Norway) in the north, the Kalix River (Sweden) and the Gulf of Bothnia (Finland) in the west and the Vistula River (Poland) in the south. It would include the Narva culture of Estonia and the Sperrings culture in Finland, among others. They are thought to have been essentially hunter-gatherers, though e.g. the Narva culture in Estonia shows some evidence of agriculture. Some of this region was absorbed by the later Corded Ware horizon.” ref

“The Pit–Comb Ware culture is one of the few exceptions to the rule that pottery and farming coexist in Europe. In the Near East farming appeared before pottery, then when farming spread into Europe from the Near East, pottery-making came with it. However, in Asia, where the oldest pottery has been found, pottery was made long before farming. It appears that the Comb Ceramic Culture reflects influences from Siberia and distant China. The ceramics consist of large pots that are rounded or pointed below, with a capacity from 40 to 60 litres. The forms of the vessels remained unchanged but the decoration varied. By dating according to the elevation of land, the ceramics have traditionally (Äyräpää 1930) been divided into the following periods: early (Ka I, c. 4200 – 3300 BCE), typical (Ka II, c. 3300 – 2700 BCE), and late Comb Ceramic (Ka III, c. 2800 – 2000 BCE). However, calibrated radiocarbon dates for the comb-ware fragments found (e.g., in the Karelian isthmus), give a total interval of 5600 – 2300 BCE (Geochronometria Vol. 23, pp 93–99, 2004).” ref

“The settlements were located at sea shores or beside lakes and the economy was based on hunting, fishing, and the gathering of plants. In Finland, it was a maritime culture that became more and more specialized in hunting seals. The dominant dwelling was probably a teepee of about 30 square meters where some 15 people could live. Also, rectangular houses made of timber become popular in Finland from 4000 BCE cal. Graves were dug at the settlements and the dead were covered with red ochre. The typical Comb Ceramic age shows an extensive use of objects made of flint and amber as grave offerings. The stone tools changed very little over time. They were made of local materials such as slate and quartz. Finds suggest a fairly extensive exchange network: red slate originating from northern Scandinavia, asbestos from Lake Saimaa, green slate from Lake Onega, amber from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, and flint from the Valdai area in northwestern Russia.” ref

“The culture was characterized by small figurines of burnt clay and animal heads made of stone. The animal heads usually depict moose and bears and were derived from the art of the Mesolithic. There were also many rock paintings. There are sources noting that the typical comb ceramic pottery had a sense of luxury and that its makers knew how to wear precious amber pendants. Saag et al. (2017) analyzed three CCC individuals buried at Kudruküla as belonging to Y-hg R1a5-YP1272 (R1a1b~ after ISOGG 2020), along with three mtDNA samples of mt-hg U5b1d1, U4a, and U2e1. Mittnik (2018) analyzed two CCC individuals. The male carried R1 (2021: R1b-M343) and U4d2, while the female carried U5a1d2b. Generally, the CCC individuals were mostly of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) descent, with even more EHG than people of the Narva culture. Lamnidis et al. (2018) confirmed and specified this to 65% Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG), 20% Western Steppe Herder (WSH), and 15% Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) ancestry. This amount of EHG ancestry was higher than among earlier cultures of the eastern Baltic, while WSH ancestry had previously not even been attested among such an early culture in the region.” ref

“In earlier times, it was often suggested that the spread of the Comb Ware people was correlated with the diffusion of the Uralic languages, and thus an early Uralic language would have been spoken throughout this culture. It was also suggested that bearers of this culture likely spoke Finno-Ugric languages. Another view is that the Comb Ware people may have spoken Palaeo-European languages, as some toponyms and hydronyms also indicate a non-Uralic, non-Indo-European language at work in some areas. In addition, modern scholars have located the Proto-Uralic homeland east of the Volga, if not even beyond the Urals. The great westward dispersal of the Uralic languages is suggested to have happened long after the demise of the Comb Ceramic culture, perhaps in the 1st millennium BCE.” ref

“Genetic studies suggest that the Pitted Ware peoples, unlike their Neolithic neighbors, were descended from earlier Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers (SHGs). At the time of the emergence of the Pitted Ware culture, these hunter-gatherers persisted to the north of the agricultural Funnelbeaker culture. Their ceramic traditions are related to those of the Comb Ceramic culture. The Pitted Ware culture arose around 3,500 BCE. Its earliest sites are found in east-central Sweden, where it appears to have replaced the Funnelbeaker culture. Its subsequent expansion is accompanied by the disappearance of settlements of the Funnelbeaker culture throughout large parts of southern Scandinavia. It came to occupy the coasts of Denmark, southern Sweden, southern Norway, and various islands of the Baltic Sea, such as Öland, Gotland, and Åland.” ref

“There were lively contacts with hunter-gatherer communities of Finland and the eastern Baltic. During its initial years, the Pitted Ware culture co-existed with the Funnelbeaker culture. Although the two cultures exchanged goods with each other, their peoples appear to have had widely different identities, and they did not mix with each other to any notable extent. During the period of Pitted Ware expansion, the Funnelbeakers constructed a number of defensive palisades, which may mean that the two peoples were in conflict with each other. Throughout its existence of more than 1,000 years, the Pitted Ware culture remained virtually unchanged.” ref

“From around 2,800 BCE, the Pitted Ware culture co-existed for some time with the Battle Axe culture and the Single Grave culture, which succeeded the Funnelbeaker culture in southern Scandinvia. Both were variants of the Corded Ware culture. Like the Funnelbeakers, the Corded Ware constructed a series of defensive palisades during this period, which may be a sign of violent conflict between them and the Pitted Ware. Though cultural influences of the Battle Axe culture are detectable in Pitted Ware burials, its peoples do not appear to have mixed with each other. By ca. 2,300 BCE, the Pitted Ware culture had merged with the Battle Axe culture. The subsequent Nordic Bronze Age represents a fusion of elements from the Pitted Ware culture and the Battle Axe culture.” ref

“The A10398G mutation defining haplogroup J (a back mutation from macrohaplogroup N) has been associated with increased longevity Dato et al. (2005), Shlush et al. (2008) and Nijiati et al. (2013) and protection against PD (Ghezzi et al. (2005) and Clark et al. (2011)). It is found in all members of haplogroup J except J1c8. The common C150T mutation has been found at strikingly higher frequency among Chinese and Italian centenarians and may be advantageous for longevity and resistance to stress according to Chen et al. (2012). C150T defines haplogroups J1b7, J1c1c, and J2, but may also be found among other subclades.” ref

Asian origin hypothesis for Haplogroup N

“The hypothesis of Asia as the place of origin of haplogroup N is supported by the following:

1. Haplogroup N is found in all parts of the world but has low frequencies in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to a number of studies, the presence of Haplogroup N in Africa is most likely the result of back migration from Eurasia.
2. The oldest clades of macrohaplogroup N are found in Asia and Australia.
3. It would be paradoxical that haplogroup N had traveled all the distance to Australia or New World yet failed to affect other populations within Africa besides North Africans and Horn Africans.
4. The mitochondrial DNA variation in isolated “relict” populations in southeast Asia supports the view that there was only a single dispersal from Africa. The distribution of the earliest branches within haplogroups M, N, and R across Eurasia and Oceania provides additional evidence for a three-founder-mtDNA scenario and a single migration route out of Africa. These findings also highlight the importance of the Indian subcontinent in the early genetic history of human settlement and expansion. Therefore, N’s history is similar to M and R which have their most probable origin in South Asia.” ref

“A study (Vai et al. 2019), finds a basal branch of maternal haplogroup N in early Neolithic North African remains from the Libyan site of Takarkori. The authors propose that N most likely split from L3 in the Arabian peninsula and later migrated back to North Africa, with its sister haplogroup M also likely splitting from L3 in the Middle East, but also suggest that N may have possibly diverged in North Africa, and state that more information is necessary to be certain.” ref

“Haplogroup N’s derived clades include the macro-haplogroup R and its descendants, and haplogroups A, I, S, W, X, and Y. Rare unclassified haplogroup N* has been found among fossils belonging to the Cardial and Epicardial culture (Cardium pottery) and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. A rare unclassified form of N has been also been reported in modern Algeria.” ref

“Haplogroup N1 – found in Africa . Haplogroup N1b – found in Middle East, Egypt (Gurna), Caucasus, and Europe. N1a’c’d’e’I Haplogroup N1c – Northern Saudi Arabia, Turkey. N1a’d’e’I Haplogroup N1d – India.” ref

“N1a’e’I Haplogroup N1a – Arabian Peninsula and Northeast Africa. Found also in Central Asia and Southern Siberia. This branch is well attested in ancient people from various cultures of Neolithic Europe, from Hungary to Spain, and among the earliest farmers of Anatolia.” ref

“N1e’I Haplogroup N1e – found in Balochs, Burushos, and Buryats
Haplogroup I – West Eurasia and South Asia.” ref

Evidence from genetics for a Proto-Uralic Homeland

“Vladimir Napolskikh, who studied the origins of the “earth-diver” creation myths, has concluded that a certain variety of those myths, which is found in the folklore of Uralic-speaking peoples, can be traced back to the dispersal of Western Siberian hunter-gatherers. Genetic data suggest that Uralic speakers can be associated with “Western Siberian hunter-gatherers” (short WSHG), which populated Western Siberia and descended largely from a deeply European-related Paleolithic Siberian population, known as Ancient North Eurasians (short ANE), but also received some admixture from “Eastern Siberians”, samplified by Evenks or Evens. Based on these findings, tests on the modern Mansi people revealed that they could be modeled as ~43% Eastern Siberian (Evenk or Even) and ~57% Western Siberian (ANE).” ref

The Western Siberian hunter-gatherers’ Area

“Western Siberia or West Siberia is a part of the larger region of Siberia that is mostly located in the Russian Federation. It lies between the Ural region and the Yenisei River, which conventionally divides Siberia into two halves. In medieval times, the region was part of the Golden Horde. After its gradual decline during the 15th century, the Khanate of Sibir, centered on Tyumen, was formed within the area. In the late 16th century, most of Western Siberia was conquered by the Russian Empire, while its southern region became part of the Kazakh Khanate. The current international borders between Russia and Kazakhstan came into being in the late 20th century following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.” ref

Sami and the Northern Indigenous Peoples Landscape, Language, and its Connection to Religion

Sacred Land, Hills, and Mountains: Sami Mythology

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

“Rare unclassified haplogroup N* has been found among fossils belonging to the Cardial and Epicardial culture (Cardium pottery) and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. Haplogroup N1a – Arabian Peninsula and Northeast Africa. Found also in Central Asia and Southern Siberia. This branch is well attested in ancient people from various cultures of Neolithic Europe, from Hungary to Spain, and among the earliest farmers of Anatolia.” ref

Cardium pottery

“Cardium pottery or Cardial ware is a Neolithic decorative style that gets its name from the imprinting of the clay with the heart-shaped shell of the Corculum cardissa , a member of the cockle family Cardiidae. These forms of pottery are in turn used to define the Neolithic culture which produced and spread them, commonly called the “Cardial culture”. The alternative name, impressed ware, is given by some archaeologists to define this culture, because impressions can be made with sharp objects other than cockle shells, such as a nail or comb.” ref

“Impressed pottery is much more widespread than the Cardial. Impressed ware is found in the zone “covering Italy to the Ligurian coast” as distinct from the more western Cardial extending from Provence to western Portugal. The sequence in prehistoric Europe has traditionally been supposed to start with widespread Cardial ware, and then to develop other methods of impression locally, termed “epi-Cardial”. However the widespread Cardial and Impressed pattern types overlap and are now considered more likely to be contemporary.” ref

“This pottery style gives its name to the main culture of the Mediterranean Neolithic: Cardium pottery culture or Cardial culture, or impressed ware culture, which eventually extended from the Adriatic sea to the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and south to Morocco. The earliest impressed ware sites, dating to 6400–6200 BCE, are in Epirus and Corfu. Settlements then appear in Albania and Dalmatia on the eastern Adriatic coast dating to between 6100 and 5900 BCE. The earliest date in Italy comes from Coppa Nevigata on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy, perhaps as early as 6000 cal BCE.” ref

“Also during Su Carroppu culture in Sardinia, already in its early stages (low strata into Su Coloru cave, c. 6000 BCE) early examples of cardial pottery appear. Northward and westward all secure radiocarbon dates are identical to those for Iberia c. 5500 cal BCE, which indicates a rapid spread of Cardial and related cultures: 2,000 km from the gulf of Genoa to the estuary of the Mondego in probably no more than 100–200 years. This suggests a seafaring expansion by planting colonies along the coast. Older Neolithic cultures existed already at this time in eastern Greece and Crete, apparently having arrived from the Levant, but they appear distinct from the Cardial or impressed ware culture.” ref

“The ceramic tradition in the central Balkans also remained distinct from that along the Adriatic coastline in both style and manufacturing techniques for almost 1,000 years from the 6th millennium BCE. Early Neolithic impressed pottery is found in the Levant, and certain parts of Anatolia, including Mezraa-Teleilat, and in North Africa at Tunus-Redeyef, Tunisia. So the first Cardial settlers in the Adriatic may have come directly from the Levant.” ref

“Of course, it might equally well have come directly from North Africa, and impressed pottery also appears in Egypt. Along the East Mediterranean coast impressed ware has been found in North Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon. Cardial and Epicardial fossils that were analyzed for ancient DNA were found to carry the rare mtDNA (maternal) basal haplogroup N*, supporting an early Neolithic maritime colonization of Mainland Europe through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands by Near-Eastern farmers.” ref

“Fernández et al. 2014 found traces of maternal genetic affinity between people of the Linear Pottery Culture and Cardium pottery with earlier peoples of the Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, and suggested that Neolithic period was initiated by seafaring colonists from the Near East. Olalde et al. 2015 examined the remains of 6 Cardials buried in Spain c. 5470-5220 BCE. The 6 samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the maternal haplogroups K1a2a, X2c, H4a1a (2 samples), H3, and K1a4a1.” ref

“The authors of the study suggested that the Cardials and peoples of the Linear Pottery Culture were descended from a common farming population in the Balkans, which had subsequently migrated further westwards into Europe along the Mediterranean coast and Danube river respectively. Among modern populations, the Cardials were found to be most closely related to Sardinians and Basque people. The Iberian Cardials carried a noticeable amount of hunter-gatherer ancestry. This hunter-gatherer ancestry was more similar to that of Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs) than Iberian hunter-gatherers, and appeared to have been acquired before the Cardial expansion into Iberia.” ref

“Mathieson et al. 2018 examined three Cardials buried at the Zemunica Cave in modern-day Croatia c. 5800 BCE. The two samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to the paternal haplogroups C1a2 and E1b1b1a1b1, while the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the maternal haplogroups H1, K1b1a, and N1a1. The team further examined two Cardials buried at Kargadur in modern-day Croatia c. 5600 BCE. The one male carried the paternal haplogroup G2a2a1, and the maternal haplogroup H7c, and the female carried H5a.” ref

“All three belonged to the Early European Farmer (EEF) cluster, thus being closely related to earlier Neolithic populations of north-west Anatolia, of the Balkan Neolithic, contemporary peoples of the Central European Linear Pottery culture, and later peoples of the Cardial Ware culture in Iberia. This would suggest that the Cardial Ware people and the Linear Pottery people were derived from a single migration from Anatolia into the Balkans, which then split into two and expanded northward and westward further into Europe.” ref

Haplogroup N1c (Y-DNA)

“Haplogroup N1c is found chiefly in north-eastern Europe, particularly in Finland (61%), Lapland (53%), Estonia (34%), Latvia (38%), Lithuania (42%), and northern Russia (30%), and to a lower extent also in central Russia (15%), Belarus (10%), eastern Ukraine (9%), Sweden (7%), Poland (4%) and Turkey (4%). N1c is also prominent among the Uralic-speaking ethnicities of the Volga-Ural region, including the Udmurts (67%), Komi (51%), Mari (50%), and Mordvins (20%), but also among their Turkic neighbors like the Chuvashs (28%), Volga Tatars (21%) and Bashkirs (17%), as well as the Nogais (9%) of southern Russia.” ref

“N1c represents the western extent of haplogroup N, which is found all over the Far East (China, Korea, Japan), Mongolia, and Siberia, especially among Uralic speakers of northern Siberia. Haplogroup N1 reaches a maximum frequency of approximately 95% in the Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b) and Nganassans (all N1b), two Uralic tribes of central-northern Siberia, and 90% among the Yakuts (all N1c), a Turkic people who live mainly in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in central-eastern Siberia.” ref

“Haplogroup N is a descendant of East Asian macro-haplogroup NO. It is believed to have originated in Indochina or southern China approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Haplogroup N1* and N1c were both found at high frequency (26 out of 70 samples, or 37%) in Neolithic and Bronze Age remains (4500-700 BCE) from the West Liao River valley in Northeast China (Manchuria) by Yinqiu Cui et al. (2013). Among the Neolithic samples, haplogroup N1 made up two thirds of the samples from the Hongshan culture (4700-2900 BCE) and all the samples from the Xiaoheyan culture (3000-2200 BCE), hinting that N1 people played a major role in the diffusion of the Neolithic lifestyle around Northeast China, and probably also to Mongolia and Siberia.” ref

“Ye Zhang et al. 2016 found 100% of Y-DNA N out of 17 samples from the Xueshan culture (Jiangjialiang site) dating from 3600–2900 BCE, and among those 41% belonged to N1c1-Tat. It is therefore extremely likely that the N1c1 subclade found in Europe today has its roots in the Chinese Neolithic. It would have progressively spread across Siberia until north-eastern Europe, possibly reaching the Volga-Ural region around 5500 to 4500 BCE with the Kama culture (5300-3300 BCE), and the eastern Baltic with the Comb Ceramic culture (4200-2000 BCE), the presumed ancestral culture of Proto-Finnic and pre-Baltic people. There is little evidence of agriculture or domesticated animals in Siberia during the Neolithic, but pottery was widely used. In that regard it was the opposite development from the Near East, which first developed agriculture then only pottery from circa 5500 BCE, perhaps through contact with East Asians via Siberia or Central Asia.” ref

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“It is generally considered that N-M231 arose in East Asia approximately 19,400 (±4,800) years ago and populated northern Eurasia after the Last Glacial Maximum. Males carrying the marker apparently moved northwards as the climate warmed in the Holocene, migrating in a counter-clockwise path, to eventually become concentrated in areas as far away as Fennoscandia and the Baltic (Rootsi et al. 2006). The apparent dearth of haplogroup N-M231 amongst Native American peoples indicates that it spread after Beringia was submerged (Chiaroni, Underhill & Cavalli-Sforza 2009), about 11,000 years ago.” ref 

“The Holocene is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years before present (around 9700 BCE), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat.” ref 

“Haplogroup N has a wide geographic distribution throughout northern Eurasia, and it also has been observed occasionally in other areas, including Central Asia and the Balkans. It has been found with the greatest frequency among indigenous peoples of Russia, including Finnic peoples, Mari, Udmurt, Komi, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Nganasans, Turkic peoples (Yakuts, Dolgans, Khakasses, Tuvans, Tatars, Chuvashes, etc.), Buryats, Tungusic peoples (Evenks, Evens, Negidals, Nanais, etc.), Yukaghirs, Luoravetlans (Chukchis, Koryaks), and Siberian Eskimos, but certain subclades are very common in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and other subclades are found at low frequency in China (Yi, Naxi, Lhoba, Han Chinese, etc.). Especially in ethnic Finnic peoples and Baltic-speaking peoples of northern Europe, the Ob-Ugric-speaking and Northern Samoyed peoples of western Siberia, and Turkic-speaking peoples of Russia (especially Yakuts (McDonald 2005), but also Altaians, Shors, Khakas, Chuvashes, Tatars, and Bashkirs). Nearly all members of haplogroup N among these populations of northern Eurasia belong to subclades of either haplogroup N-Tat or haplogroup N-P43.” ref

“Y-chromosomes belonging to N1b-F2930/M1881/V3743, or N1*-CTS11499/L735/M2291(xN1a-F1206/M2013/S11466), have been found in China and sporadically throughout other parts of Eurasia. N1a-F1206/M2013/S11466 is found in high numbers in Northern Eurasia. N2-Y6503, the other primary subclade of haplogroup N, is extremely rare and is mainly represented among extant humans by a recently formed subclade that is virtually restricted to the countries making up the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro), Hungary and Austria. Other members of N2-Y6503 include a Hungarian with recent ancestry from Suceava in Bukovina, a Slovakian, a few British individuals, and an Altaian.” ref

N* (M231)

“Y-chromosomes that display the M231 mutation that defines Haplogroup N-M231, but do not display the CTS11499, L735, M2291 mutations that define Haplogroup N1 are said to belong to paragroup N-M231*. N-M231* has been found at low levels in China. Out of a sample of 165 Han males from China, two individuals (1.2%) were found to belong to N*. (Karafet et al. 2010). One originated from Guangzhou and one from Xi’an. Among the ancient samples from the Baikal Early Neolithic Kitoi culture, one of the Shamanka II samples (DA250), dated to c. 6500 years before present, was analyzed as NO1-M214.” ref

Resource processing, early pottery and the emergence of Kitoi culture in Cis-Baikal: Insights from lipid residue analysis of an Early Neolithic ceramic assemblage from the Gorelyi Les habitation site, Eastern Siberia 

“In the early Holocene, Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities inhabiting the Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia were participating in a series of important cultural changes. These included the establishment of large cemeteries in the Angara Valley and on the Southwest shores of Lake Baikal, culminating in the formation of the distinctive Early Neolithic Kitoi cultural pattern ca. 7560 cal. years before present. Around the same time, the appearance of clay pots in a few Kitoi graves and at some contemporary habitation sites marks the formal transition to the Early Neolithic, which is defined in Russian archaeology by the emergence of pottery (and not the transition to farming). Little is known about how this early pottery was used, and why it was first adopted into the region. This pilot-study presents lipid-residue analysis of a selection of sherds from the oldest and relatively well-dated pottery assemblage in the Cis-Baikal region, which was recovered from the Gorelyi Les habitation site. The results indicate that the pots had been used to process a broad spectrum of food resources, including ruminants, fish and plants, and possibly resin and other by-products derived from pine trees, suggesting that the vessels were being used as general-purpose cooking containers. We conclude that there is scope for a much larger-scale investigation of diversity and change in prehistoric pottery use in Cis-Baikal, and that this research would improve current understandings of the diet, health, and subsistence strategies of the Kitoi and other prehistoric populations.” ref 

“The Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia includes the Angara Valley, the western shores of Lake Baikal, and the upper Lena River. In warmer conditions of the early Holocene, this region was the scene of several major cultural transitions. While there is general continuity in bone and stone tool-making traditions throughout the Mesolithic, the transition from the Early Mesolithic (10,000–8630 cal. years before present) to the Late Mesolithic (8630–7560 cal. years before present) is marked by the emergence of archaeologically visible mortuary practices, including isolated burials of individuals, and a few small cemeteries (e.g. Pad’ Khin’skaia, Pad’ Chastye and Ust’-Griaznaia in Angara Valley or Rytvinka in Upper Lena valleys; Weber et al., 2016b). Evidence from these burials and from faunal evidence recovered from habitation sites suggest that aquatic resources were already contributing to Late Mesolithic diets.” ref

“At the end of the Late Mesolithic, during a period of further climatic warming and the expansion of forest cover, further changes gathered pace (White and Bush, 2010; Weber, submitted). The small mobile groups of the Mesolithic appear to coalesce into larger social units, as evidenced by the rather sudden formation of large cemeteries, especially along the Angara River and on the shores of Southwest Baikal (Weber, submitted). These complexes contain highly distinctive mortuary traditions, starting with the “Kitoi” (Bazaliiskii, 2010), and have since been subject to comprehensive radiocarbon dating, including corrections for freshwater reservoir effects (Bronk Ramsey et al., 2014; Schulting et al., 2014, Schulting et al., 2015; Nomokonova et al., 2015; Weber et al., 2016a, Weber et al., 2016b; Weber et al., submitted). The “classic” Kitoi cemeteries include Shamanka II at the head of the Kultuk Bay, as well as other large burial grounds located at the mouths of the main tributaries of the Angara River, including Kitoi (Kitoi River) and Lokomotiv (Irkut River) or smaller ones such as Ust’ Belaia and Galashikha (Belaia River; Fig. 1).” ref

N1 (CTS11499, Z4762, CTS3750)

“In 2014, there was a major change in the definition of subclade N1, when LLY22g was retired as the main defining SNP for N1 because of reports of LLY22g’s unreliability. According to ISOGG, LLY22g is problematic because it is a “palindromic marker and can easily be misinterpreted.” Since then, the name N1 has been applied to a clade marked by a great number of SNPs, including CTS11499, Z4762, and CTS3750. N1 is the most recent common ancestor of all extant members of Haplogroup N-M231 except members of the rare N2-Y6503 (N2-B482) subclade. The TMRCA of N1 is estimated to be 18,000 years before the present (16,300–19,700 BP; 95% CI). Since the revision of 2014, the position of many examples of “N1-LLY22g” within haplogroup N has become unclear.” ref 

“However, in older studies, N-LLY22g has been reported to reach a frequency of up to 30% (13/43) among the Yi people of Butuo County, Sichuan in Southwest China (Hammer et al. 2005, Karafet et al. 2001, and Wen2004b). It is also found in 34.6% of Lhoba people (Wen 2004, Bo Wen 2004). N1-LLY22g* has been found in samples of Han Chinese, but with widely varying frequency:

• 15.0% (6/40) Han from Guangzhou (Hammer et al. 2005 and Karafet et al. 2001)
• 6.8% (3/44) Han from Xi’an (Hammer et al. 2005 and Karafet et al. 2001)
• 6.7% (2/30) Han from Lanzhou (Xue et al. 2006)
• 3.6% (3/84) Taiwanese Han (Hammer et al. 2005)
• 2.9% (1/34) Han from Chengdu (Xue et al. 2006)
• 2.9% (1/35) Han from Harbin (Xue et al. 2006)
• 2.9% (1/35) Han from Meixian District (Xue et al. 2006)
• 0% (0/32) Han from Yining City (Xue et al. 2006)” ref

“Other populations in which representatives of N1*-LLY22g have been found include:

• Hani people (4/34 = 11.8%) (Xue et al. 2006)
• Sibe people (4/41 = 9.8%) (Xue et al. 2006)
• Tujia people (2/49 = 4.1%) (Hammer et al. 2005)
• Manchu people (2/52 = 3.8% (Hammer et al. 2005) to 2/35 = 5.7% (Xue et al. 2006)
• Bit people (1/28 = 3.6%) (Cai 2011)
• Uyghurs (2/70 = 2.9% (Xue et al. 2006) to 2/67 = 3.0%) (Hammer et al. 2005)
• Tibetan people (3/105 = 2.9% (Hammer et al. 2005) to 3/35 = 8.6% (Xue et al. 2006))
• Koreans (0/106 = 0.0% – 2/25 = 8% (Rootsi et al. 2006, Xue et al. 2006, and Kim 2007)
• Vietnamese people (2/70 = 2.9%) (Hammer et al. 2005)
• Japanese people (0/70 Tokushima – 2/26 = 7.7% Aomori) (Hammer et al. 2005)
• Manchurian Evenks (0/26 = 0.0% (Xue et al. 2006) to 1/41 = 2.4%(Hammer et al. 2005))
• Altai people (0/50 Northern to 5/96 = 5.2% Southern, or 0/43 Beshpeltir to 5/46 = 10.9% Kulada),(Hammer et al. 2005)(Kharkov 2007)
• Shors (2/23 = 8.7%) (Rootsi et al. 2006)
• Khakas people (5/181 = 2.8%) (Rootsi et al. 2006)
• Tuvans (5/311 = 1.6%) (Rootsi et al. 2006)
• Southern Borneo (1/40 = 2.5%) (Rootsi et al. 2006)
• Forest Nenets (1/89 = 1.1%) (Rootsi et al. 2006)
• Yakuts (0/215 – 1/121 = 0.8%) (Rootsi et al. 2006)
• Turkish people (1/523 = 0.2%) (Rootsi et al. 2006) In Turkey, the total of subclades of haplogroup N-M231 amounts to 4% of the male population.
• One individual who belongs either to N* or N1* has been found in a sample of 77 males from Kathmandu, Nepal (1/77 = 1.3% N-M231(xM128, P43, Tat)) (Gayden 2007)” ref

“N1(xN1a, N1c) was found in ancient bones of Liao civilization:

• Niuheliang (Hongshan Culture, 6500–5000 years before present) 66.7%(=4/6)
• Halahaigou (Xiaoheyan Culture, 5000–4200 years before present) 100.0%(=12/12)
• Dadianzi (Lower Xiajiadian culture, 4200–3600 years before present) 60.0%(=3/5).” ref

“N-CTS4309: two people identified with this subgroup in Iraq. Very rare.” ref

N1a (F1206/M2013/S11466)

“The N1a2-F1008/L666 clade and N1a1-M46/Page70/Tat are estimated to share a most recent common ancestor in N1a-F1206/M2013/S11466 approximately 15,900 [95% CI 13,900 <-> 17,900] years before present or 17,621 [95% CI 14,952 <-> 20,282] years before present.” ref

N1a1 (M46/Page70/Tat, L395/M2080)

All M46 in Yfull database are M178, being a quarter younger than separation from F1139. The mutations that define the subclade N-M46 are M46/Tat and P105. This is the most frequent subclade of N. It probably arose in a Northeast Asian population, because the oldest ancient samples comply with this genetic profile. N has experienced serial bottlenecks in Siberia and secondary expansions in eastern Europe (Rootsi et al. 2006). Haplogroup N-M46 is approximately 14,000 years old.” ref

“In Siberia, haplogroup N-M46 reaches a maximum frequency of approximately 90% among the Yakuts, a Turkic people who live mainly in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. However, N-M46 is present with much lower frequency among many of the Yakuts’ neighbors, such as Evenks and Evens. It also has been detected in 5.9% (3/51) of a sample of Hmong Daw from Laos (Cai 2011), 2.4% (2/85) of a sample from Seoul, South Korea (Katoh 2004), and in 1.4% (1/70) of a sample from Tokushima, Japan (Hammer et al. 2005).” ref

“The haplogroup N-M46 has a low diversity among Yakuts suggestive of a population bottleneck or founder effect (Pakendorf 2002). This was confirmed by a study of ancient DNA which traced the origins of the male Yakut lineages to a small group of horse-riders from the Cis-Baikal area (Crubézy 2010).” ref

“N-Tat has been observed with greatly varying frequency in samples from Sweden. Karlsson et al. (2006) found N-Tat in 44.7% (17/38) of a sample of Saami nomads from Jokkmokk, 19.5% (8/41) of a sample from Västerbotten, 14.5% (8/55) of a sample from Uppsala, 10.0% (4/40) of a sample from Gotland, 9.5% (4/42) of a sample from Värmland, 7.3% (3/41) of a sample from Östergötland/Jönköping, 2.4% (1/41) of a sample from Blekinge/Kristianstad, and 2.2% (1/45) of a sample from Skaraborg. Lappalainen et al. (2008) found N-Tat in 14.4% (23/160) of a sample from Sweden.” ref

“Lappalainen et al. (2009) found N-Tat in 15.4% (4/26) of a sample from Södermanland, 12.5% (3/24) of a sample from Västmanland, 12.1% (4/33) of a sample from Uppsala, 7.8% (4/51) of a sample from Gothenburg, 7.0% (3/43) of a sample from Norrbotten, 6.8% (5/73) of a sample from Skåne, 6.6% (15/228) of a sample from Stockholm, 6.3% (3/48) of a sample from Sydnorrland, 6.3% (2/32) of a sample from Västerbotten, 6.3% (2/32) of a sample from Örebro, 5.9% (3/51) of a sample from Värmland/Dalarna, 5.4% (2/37) of a sample from Östra Götaland, and 5.1% (2/39) of a sample from southeastern Sweden (Kalmar, Gotland, Kronoberg, and Blekinge). They did not find any instance of N-Tat in their samples from Jönköping (0/28), Malmö (0/29), Halland (0/34), or Västra Götaland (0/75).” ref

N1a1a (M178)

“The subclade N-M178 is defined by the presence of markers M178 and P298. N-M178* has a higher average frequency in Northern Europe than in Siberia, reaching frequencies of approximately 60% among Finns and approximately 40% among Latvians, Lithuanians & 35% among Estonians (Derenko 2007 and Lappalainen 2008).” ref

“Miroslava Derenko and her colleagues noted that there are two subclusters within this haplogroup, both present in Siberia and Northern Europe, with different histories. The one that they labeled N3a1 first expanded in south Siberia and spread into Northern Europe. Meanwhile, the younger subcluster, which they labeled N3a2, originated in south Siberia (probably in the Baikal region)(Derenko 2007).” ref 

“N-M178 was also found in two Na-Dené speaking Tłı̨chǫs in North America. Neolithic samples from Baikal area have yielded plenty of yDNA N specimens, and one sample from Fofonovo, Buryatia, 5000-4000 BCE is among the first Tat samples in the ancient record.” ref

N1a2 (F1008/L666)

“N1a2a-M128 and N1a2b-B523/P43 are estimated to share a most recent common ancestor in N1a2-F1008/L666 approximately 8,600 [95% CI 7,500 <-> 9,800] years before present, 9,200 years before present, or 9,314 [95% CI 7,419 <-> 11,264] years before present. At least three of six tested male specimens from the Early Neolithic (ceramic-using hunter-gatherer of approximately 7200–6200 years ago) layer at the Shamanka archaeological site near the southern end of Lake Baikal have been found to belong to N1a2-L666.” ref

N1a2a-M128

“This subclade is defined by the presence of the marker M128. N-M128 was first identified in a sample from Japan (1/23 = 4.3%) and in a sample from Central Asia and Siberia (1/184 = 0.5%) in a preliminary survey of worldwide Y-DNA variation. Subsequently, it has been found with low frequency in some samples of the Manchu people, Sibe people, Evenks, Koreans, Han Chinese, Hui, Tibetans, Vietnamese, Bouyei people, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Salars, Tu, Mongols, the Buzava tribe of Kalmyks,[29] Khakas, and Komis. A number of Han Chinese, an Ooled Mongol, a Qiang, and a Tibetan were found to belong to a sister branch (or branches) of N-M128 under paragroup N-F1154*. A neolithic sample brn002 (~5,940 BP) in Trans-Baikal was discovered to be an early offshoot upstream of N-M128.” ref

N1a2b (P43)

“Haplogroup N-P43 is defined by the presence of the marker P43. It has been estimated to be approximately 4,000 to 5,500 years old (TMRCA 4,510 years, TMRCA 4,700 [95% CI 3,800 <-> 5,600] ybp, or 4,727 [95% CI 3,824 <-> 5,693] years before present). It has been found very frequently among Northern Samoyedic peoples, speakers of Ob-Ugric languages, and northern Khakassians, and it also has been observed with low to moderate frequency among speakers of some other Uralic languages, Turkic peoples, Mongolic peoples, Tungusic peoples, and Siberian Yupik people.” ref

“The highest frequencies of N-P43 are observed among north-west Siberian populations: 92% (35/38) in a sample of Nganasan, 78% (7/9) in a sample of Enets, 78% (21/27) in a sample of Khants, 75% (44/59) in a sample of Tundra Nenets, 69% (29/42) in another sample of Nenets, 60% (15/25) in a sample of Mansi, 57% (64/112) in another sample of Khants, 54% (27/50) in another sample of Nganasan, 45% (40/89) in a sample of Forest Nenets, 38% (18/47) in a third sample of Khants, and 25% (7/28) in a fourth sample of Khants. In Europe, the N-P43 types have their highest frequency of 20% among Volga-Uralic populations. The extreme western border of the spread of N-P43 is Finland, where this haplogroup occurs only at marginal frequency – 0.4%. Yet N-P43 is quite frequent among Vepsas (17.9%), a small Finnic population living in immediate proximity to Finns, Karelians, and Estonians.” ref

“Haplogroup N-P43 also has been observed with very high frequency (26/29 = 89.7% of a sample from the settlement of Topanov and 19/22 = 86.4% of a sample from the settlement of Malyi Spirin) in samples of Kachins, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group or territorial subgroup of the Khakas people, from Shirinsky District of northern Khakassia. There appears to be a cline through the Sagai (another Turkic-speaking ethnic group that is now considered to be a constituent of the Khakas people), with 46.2% (55/119) of Sagai sampled from Ust’–Es’, Esino, Ust’–Chul’, and Kyzlas settlements of Askizsky District of central Khakassia belonging to haplogroup N-P43 vs. only 13.6% (11/81) of Sagai sampled from Matur, Anchul’, Bol’shaya Seya, and Butrakhty settlements of Tashtypsky District of southern Khakassia belonging to this haplogroup.” ref 

“However, other researchers’ samples of Khakas people have exhibited only moderate frequencies of N-P43 or potential N-P43. Derenko et al. (2006) examined a sample of Khakassians (n=53) collected in the settlements of Askiz, Shirinsk, Beisk, and Ordzhonikidzevsk districts of Khakass Republic and found that 15 of them (28.3%) belonged to N-LLY22g(xTat). Rootsi et al. (2007) examined a sample of Khakas (n=181) and found that 31 of them (17.1%) belonged to N-P43; Ilumae et al. (2016) retested 174 of the individuals in this sample and found that 27 of them (15.5%) belonged to the N-B478 (Asian/northern Samoyedic) subclade of N-P43 and 2 of them (1.1%) belonged to the N-L1419 (European/Volga Finnic and Chuvash) subclade of N-P43 for a total of 29 (16.7%) N-P43. Haplogroup N-P43 forms two distinctive subclusters of STR haplotypes, Asian and European, the latter mostly distributed among Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples and related populations (Rootsi et al. 2006).” ref

N1a2b1-B478

“The TMRCA of N-B478 has been estimated to be 3,007 [95% CI 2,171 <-> 3,970] years before present. It is one of the most prevalent Y-DNA haplogroups among indigenous populations of northwestern Siberia: 69.0% (29/42) Nenets, 50.0% (25/50) Nganasan, 22.2% (12/54) Dolgan from Taymyr, 7.0% (3/43) Selkup, 1.6% (1/63) Ob-Ugrian. It is also quite prevalent among populations of Central Siberia, Southern Siberia, and Mongolia: 17.9% (17/95) Tuvan, 15.5% (27/174) Khakas, 13.0% (6/46) Tozhu Tuvans, 8.7% (2/23) Shor, 8.3% (2/24) Even, 8.2% (5/61) Altaian, 5.3% (3/57) Evenk, 5.0% (19/381) Mongol, 4.9% (3/61) Sart-Kalmak (partial descendants of Oirat Mongols in Kyrgyzstan), 4.2% (9/216) Yakut, 2.1% (1/47) Torgut (Mongolia), 1.4% (1/69) Derbet (Kalmykia), 0.9% (1/111) Buryat. A geographically outlying member has been found in a sample of Chuvash (1/114 = 0.88%).” ref

“Karafet et al. (2018) observed N-P63, which appears to be roughly phylogenetically equivalent to N-B478, in 91.2% (31/34) Nganasan, 63.8% (30/47) Tundra Nenets, 42.7% (35/82) Forest Nenets, 14.0% (8/57) Dolgan, 7.0% (9/129) Selkup, 3.3% (3/91) Evenk, 2.7% (2/75) Mongol, 2.6% (2/78) Komi, 2.5% (2/80) Buryat, and 2.0% (2/98) Altai Kizhi. This haplogroup was not observed in samples of Yukaghir (0/10), Koryak (0/11), Teleut (0/40), Ket (0/44), Yakut (0/62), or Khanty (0/165) populations.” ref

N1b (F2930)

“Haplogroup N1b has been predominantly found in the Yi people, a Tibeto-Burman speaking ethnic group in southwestern China who originated from ancient Qiang tribes in northwestern China. However, it also has been found in people all over China and in some samples of people from Poland, Belarus, Russia, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bhutan, and India.” ref

N2 (Y6503)

N2 (Y6503/FGC28528; B482/FGC28394/Y6584) – a primary branch of haplogroup N-M231, is now represented mainly by a subclade, N-FGC28435, that has spread probably sometime in the first half of the second millennium CE and that has been found in individuals from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Turkey (Istanbul).” ref

“N-Y7310 (or N-F14667) subsumes N-FGC28435 and likewise probably descends from a common ancestor who has lived sometime in the first half of the last millennium. However, members of N-Y7310(xFGC28435) exhibit a greater geographic range, including an individual from Rostov Oblast of Russia and a Romanian Hungarian individual with ancestry from Suceava, Bukovina. Other branches of N-P189 include members from Turkey, Russia (Moscow Oblast), France (Charente-Maritime), and England (Devon). The most recent common ancestor of all the aforementioned extant N-P189 lineages has been estimated to be 4,900 (95% CI 5,700 <-> 4,100) years before present. An archaeological specimen attributed to the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan and dated to the latter half of the fourth millennium BCE belongs to N-P189*, being basal to present-day European members of N-P189.” ref

“Lineages that belong to N-Y6503(xP189) and are only distantly related (with a time to the most recent common ancestor estimated to be greater than 10,000 years before present) to the aforementioned members of N-P189 have been found in an individual from the present-day Altai Republic and probably also in an archaeological specimen attributed to the Iron Age Mezőcsát culture of what is now Hungary (approx. 2,900 years before present) and in an archaeological specimen attributed to the Kitoi culture of ceramic-using foragers of the area around Lake Baikal (approx. 6,700 years before present).” ref

Y-DNA haplogroup N and Ancient peoples

“A sample was excavated at the Houtaomuga site in the Yonghe neighborhood of Honggangzi Township, Da’an, Jilin, China dating back to 7430–7320 years ago (Phase II of the Early Neolithic) has been found to belong to Y-DNA haplogroup N and mtDNA haplogroup B4c1a2. This sample is autosomally identical with the Neolithic Amur River Basin populations, of which Nivkh people are the closest modern representative. As the paper detected this ancestry in terminal Pleistocene USR1 specimen in Alaska, it is, therefore, postulated that there was gene flow from Amur to America of a population belonging to a hypothetical Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Nivkh linguistic family. N has also been found in many samples of Neolithic human remains exhumed from Liao civilization in northeastern China, and in the circum-Baikal area of southern Siberia. It is suggested that yDNA N, reached southern Siberia from 12,000-14,000 years ago. From there it reached southern Europe 8,000-10,000 years ago.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Ancient North Eurasian

“In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (often abbreviated as ANE) is the name given to an ancestral West Eurasian component that represents descent from the people similar to the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture and populations closely related to them, such as from Afontova Gora and the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site. Significant ANE ancestry are found in some modern populations, including North east Europeans, South central Asians, And Native Americans.” ref

“The ANE lineage is defined by association with the MA-1, or “Mal’ta boy“, the remains of an individual who lived during the Last Glacial Maximum, 24,000 years ago in central Siberia. The earliest known individual with a genetic mutation associated with blonde hair in modern Europeans is an Ancient North Eurasian female dated to around 16000 BCE from the Afontova Gora 3 site in Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have included a narrative, found in both Indo-European and some Native American fables, in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref

“Ancient North Eurasians are described as a lineage “which is deeply related to Paleolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe,” meaning that they diverged from Paleolithic Europeans a long time ago. The proposed split between ANE and Paleolithic Europeans happened either in Europe or in the Middle East. All currently found samples, associated with Ancient North Eurasians, had minor admixture from an ancient East Asian-related population, such as the Tianyuan Man, while at the same time contributing some ancestry vice-versa. Sikora et al. (2019) found that the oldest ANE-associated Yana RHS sample (around 31,600 years ago) in Northeastern Siberia “can be modeled as early West Eurasian with an approximately 22% contribution from Ancient East Asians” suggesting early contact in Northeastern Siberia. ANE-ancestry in turn can be found among Paleo-Siberians and some East Asian groups in considerable varying amounts.” ref

“Populations genetically similar to MA-1 were an important genetic contributor to Native Americans, Europeans, Central Asians, South Asians, and some East Asian groups (such as the Ainu people), in order of significance. Lazaridis et al. (2016:10) note “a cline of ANE ancestry across the east-west extent of Eurasia.” The ancient Bronze-age-steppe Yamnaya and Afanasevo cultures were found to have a noteworthy ANE component at ~25% (some studies estimated a higher percentage at nearly ~50%).[8] According to Moreno-Mayar et al. 2018 between 14% and 38% of Native American ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal’ta–Buret’ people (ANE). This difference is caused by the penetration of posterior Siberian migrations into the Americas, with the lowest percentages of ANE ancestry found in Eskimos and Alaskan Natives, as these groups are the result of migrations into the Americas roughly 5,000 years ago.” ref

“Estimates for ANE ancestry among first wave Native Americans show higher percentages, such as 42% for those belonging to the Andean region in South America. The other gene flow in Native Americans (the remainder of their ancestry) was of East Asian origin. Gene sequencing of another south-central Siberian people (Afontova Gora-2) dating to approximately 17,000 years ago, revealed similar autosomal genetic signatures to that of Mal’ta boy-1, suggesting that the region was continuously occupied by humans throughout the Last Glacial Maximum.” ref

“Genomic studies also indicate that the ANE component was introduced to Western Europe by people related to the Yamnaya culture, long after the Paleolithic. It is reported in modern-day Europeans (10%–20%). Additional ANE ancestry is found in European populations through Paleolithic interactions with Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers, which resulted in populations such as Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers.” ref

“The Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) split from the ancestors of European peoples somewhere in the Middle East or South-central Asia, and used a northern dispersal route through Central Asia into Northern Asia and Siberia. Genetic analyses show that the currently found ANE samples of Northern Asia (Afontova Gora 3, Mal’ta 1, and Yana-RHS) show evidence for minor gene flow from an East Asian-related group (samplified by the Amis, Han, or Tianyuan), suggesting long-term contact with early East Asian migrant groups from more southern regions. Similarly, ANE-ancestry is observed among Paleo-Siberian populations and peoples of the Altai region in considerable varying amounts, suggesting that previous ANE-related groups got assimilated by incoming East Asian migrant groups, rather than replacement.” ref

“In contrast, no evidence for ANE-related geneflow into East Asians (Amis, Han, Tianyuan), except the Ainu, was found. Genetic data suggests that the ANE formed during the Terminal Upper-Paleolithic (36+-1,5ka) period from a deeply European-related population, which was once widespread in Northern Eurasia, and later received minor admixture from an early East Asian-related group, which migrated northwards into North Asia and Siberia, merging with this deeply European-related population. These population dynamics and constant northwards geneflow of East Asian-related ancestry would later gave rise to the “Ancestral Native Americans” and Paleosiberians, which replaced the ANE as dominant population of Siberia.” ref

“The amount of East Asian-related ancestry among currently analyzed ANE samples varies between 14% to up to 22% suggesting an slow increase of East Asian-related ancestry since the late Paleolithic. The East Asian-like ancestry is best represented by a population ancestral to modern East Asians and Southeast Asians.” ref

Groups partially derived from the Ancient North Eurasians

“Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) is a lineage which derived significant ancestry from ANE, ranging between 9% to up to 75%, with the remaining ancestry from a group more closely related to, but distinct from, Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHGs). It is represented by two individuals from Karelia, one of Y-haplogroup R1a-M417, dated c. 8.4 kya, the other of Y-haplogroup J, dated c. 7.2 kya; and one individual from Samara, of Y-haplogroup R1b-P297, dated c. 7.6 kya. After the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) and EHG lineages merged in Eastern Europe, accounting for early presence of ANE-derived ancestry in Mesolithic Europe. Evidence suggests that as Ancient North Eurasians migrated West from Eastern Siberia, they absorbed Western Hunter-Gatherers and other West Eurasian populations as well.” ref

“Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG) is represented by several individuals buried at Motala, Sweden ca. 6000 BCE or around 8,022 years ago. They were descended from Western Hunter-Gatherers who initially settled Scandinavia from the south, and later populations of EHG who entered Scandinavia from the north through the coast of Norway.” ref

“Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American are specific archaeogenetic lineages, based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site (dubbed USR1), dated to 11,500 years ago. The AB lineage diverged from the Ancestral Native American (ANA) lineage about 20,000 years ago.” ref

“West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (WSHG) are a specific archaeogenetic lineage, first reported in a genetic study published in Science in September 2019. WSGs were found to be of about 30% EHG ancestry, 50% ANE ancestry, and 20% to 38% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Western Steppe Herders (WSH) is the name given to a distinct ancestral component that represents descent closely related to the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe. This ancestry is often referred to as Yamnaya ancestry or Steppe ancestry.” ref

“Late Upper Paeolithic Lake Baikal – Ust’Kyakhta-3 (UKY) around 14,050-13,770 years ago were a mixture of 30% ANE ancestry and 70% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Lake Baikal Holocene The Holocene began approximately 11,650 years ago or (9,700 BCE) – Baikal Eneolithic (Baikal_EN) and Baikal Early Bronze Age (Baikal_EBA) derived 6.4% to 20.1% ancestry from ANE, while the rest of their ancestry was derived from East Asians. Fofonovo_EN nearby Lake Baikal was a mixture of 12-17% ANE ancestry and 83-87% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Hokkaido Jōmon people specifically refers to the Jōmon period population of Hokkaido in northernmost Japan. Though the Jōmon people themselves descended mainly from East Asian lineages, one study found an affinity between Hokkaido Jōmon with the Northern Eurasian Yana sample (an ANE-related group, related to Mal’ta), and suggest as an explanation for the possibility of minor Yana gene flow into the Hokkaido Jōmon population (as well as other possibilities). A more recent study by Cooke et al. 2021, confirmed ANE-related geneflow among the Jōmon people, partially ancestral to the Ainu people. ANE ancestry among Jōmon people is estimated at 21%, however, there is a North to South cline within the Japanese archipelago, with the highest amount of ANE ancestry in Hokkaido and Tohoku.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Here are my thoughts/speculations on where I believe is the possible origin of shamanism, which may have begun sometime around 35,000 to 30,000 years ago seen in the emergence of the Gravettian culture, just to outline his thinking, on what thousands of years later led to evolved Asian shamanism, in general, and thus WU shamanism as well. In both Europe-related “shamanism-possible burials” and in Gravettian mitochondrial DNA is a seeming connection to Haplogroup U. And the first believed Shaman proposed burial belonged to Eastern Gravettians/Pavlovian culture at Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia in the Czech Republic, which is the oldest permanent human settlement that has ever been found. It is at Dolní Věstonice where approximately 27,000-25,000 years ago a seeming female shaman was buried and also there was an ivory totem portrait figure, seemingly of her.

And my thoughts on how cultural/ritual aspects were influenced in the area of Göbekli Tepe. I think it relates to a few different cultures starting in the area before the Neolithic. Two different groups of Siberians first from northwest Siberia with U6 haplogroup 40,000 to 30,000 or so. Then R Haplogroup (mainly haplogroup R1b but also some possible R1a both related to the Ancient North Eurasians). This second group added its “R1b” DNA of around 50% to the two cultures Natufian and Trialetian. To me, it is likely both of these cultures helped create Göbekli Tepe. Then I think the female art or graffiti seen at Göbekli Tepe to me possibly relates to the Epigravettians that made it into Turkey and have similar art in North Italy. I speculate that possibly the Totem pole figurines seen first at Kostenki, next went to Mal’ta in Siberia as seen in their figurines that also seem “Totem-pole-like”, and then with the migrations of R1a it may have inspired the Shigir idol in Russia and the migrations of R1b may have inspired Göbekli Tepe.

Seeming Connections: Totem poles, Ceremonial poles, Spirit poles, Sacred poles, Deity poles, Deities with poles, Pole star, Axis Mundi, Sacred trees, World tree, Maypole, Sun Dance with poles, etc.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Based on the seeming evidence, I speculate that around 14,000 years ago, it could be possible Siberian Shamanism (along with dogs and a bird carving, different but yet possibly related to the bird carvings in Siberia dating from 24,000 to 15,000 years ago) was transferred to China, after “N” DNA reached Siberia bringing them pottery. Bird sculptures through ethnographic comparison at 24,000–15,000 years old Mal’ta with objects used by Siberian shamans, suggest a fully developed shamanism.

Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Civilization relating to Neolithic and Ancient China

Investigating Asian Shamanism: “Wu” (Chinese shaman) and (Chinese shamanism) “Wuism” or “Wu” religion as well as Others to Understand

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Comparative “Dog Guarding” Mythology

“Since the term ‘Ancient North Eurasian’ refers to a genetic bridge of connected mating networks, scholars of comparative mythology have argued that they probably shared myths and beliefs that could be reconstructed via the comparison of stories attested within cultures that were not in contact for millennia and stretched from the Pontic–Caspian steppe to the American continent.” ref

“For instance, the mytheme of the dog guarding the Otherworld possibly stems from an older Ancient North Eurasian belief, as suggested by similar motifs found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian mythology. In Siouan, Algonquian, Iroquoian, and in Central and South American beliefs, a fierce guard dog was located in the Milky Way, perceived as the path of souls in the afterlife, and getting past it was a test. The Siberian Chukchi and Tungus believed in a guardian-of-the-afterlife dog and a spirit dog that would absorb the dead man’s soul and act as a guide in the afterlife. In Indo-European myths, the figure of the dog is embodied by Cerberus, Sarvarā, and Garmr. Anthony and Brown note that it might be one of the oldest mythemes recoverable through comparative mythology.” ref

“A second canid-related series of beliefs, myths, and rituals connected dogs with healing rather than death. For instance, Ancient Near Eastern and Turkic–Kipchaq myths are prone to associate dogs with healing and generally categorized dogs as impure. A similar myth-pattern is assumed for the Eneolithic site of Botai in Kazakhstan, dated to 3500 BCE, which might represent the dog as an absorber of illness and guardian of the household against disease and evil. In Mesopotamia, the goddess Nintinugga, associated with healing, was accompanied or symbolized by dogs. Similar absorbent-puppy healing and sacrifice rituals were practiced in Greece and Italy, among the Hittites, again possibly influenced by Near Eastern traditions.” ref

Evenks

“The Evenks (also spelled Ewenki or Evenki based on their endonym Ewenkī(l)) are a Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Evenks are recognized as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North, with a population of 38,396 (2010 census). In China, the Evenki form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People’s Republic of China, with a population of 30,875 (2010 census). There are 537 Evenks in Mongolia (2015 census), called Khamnigan in the Mongolian language.” ref

“The Evenks or Ewenki are sometimes conjectured to be connected to the Shiwei people who inhabited the Greater Khingan Range in the 5th to 9th centuries, although the native land of the majority of Evenki people is in the vast regions of Siberia between Lake Baikal and the Amur River. The Ewenki language forms the northern branch of the Manchu-Tungusic language group and is closely related to Even and Negidal in Siberia. By 1600 the Evenks or Ewenki of the Lena and Yenisey river valleys were successful reindeer herders. By contrast, the Solons (ancestors of the Evenkis in China) and the Khamnigans (Ewenkis of Transbaikalia) had picked up horse breeding and the Mongolian deel from the Mongols. The Solons nomadized along the Amur River. They were closely related to the Daur people. To the west, the Khamnigan were another group of horse-breeding Evenks in the Transbaikalia area. Also in the Amur valley a body of Siberian Evenki-speaking people were called Orochen by the Manchus.” ref

“The ancestors of the south-eastern Evenks most likely lived in the Baikal region of Southern Siberia (near the modern-day Mongolian border) since the Neolithic era. Considering the north-western Evenks, Vasilevich claims: “The origin of the Evenks is the result of complex processes, different in time, involving the mixing of different ancient aboriginal tribes from the north of Siberia with tribes related in language to the Turks and Mongols. The language of these tribes took precedence over the languages of the aboriginal population”. Elements of more modern Evenk culture, including conical tent dwellings, bone fish-lures, and birch-bark boats, were all present in sites that are believed to be Neolithic. From Lake Baikal, “they spread to the Amur and Okhotsk Sea…the Lena Basin…and the Yenisey Basin.” ref

“Traditionally they were a mixture of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers—they relied on their domesticated reindeer for milk and transport and hunted other large game for meat. Today “[t]he Evenks are divided into two large groups…engaging in different types of economy. These are the hunting and reindeer-breeding Evenks…and the horse and cattle pastoral Evenks as well as some farming Evenks”. The Evenks lived mostly in taiga, or boreal forest. They lived in conical tents made from birch bark or reindeer skin tied to birch poles. When they moved camp, the Evenks would leave these frameworks and carry only the more portable coverings. During winter, the hunting season, most camps consisted of one or two tents while spring encampments had up to 10 households.” ref

“Their skill at riding their domesticated reindeer allowed the Evenks to “colonize vast areas of the eastern taiga which had previously been impenetrable” The Evenks used a saddle unique to their culture, placed on the shoulders of the reindeer to lessen the strain on the animal, and used a stick rather than stirrups to balance. Evenks did not develop reindeer sleds/sledges until comparatively recent times. They instead used their reindeer as pack animals and often traversed great distances on foot, using snowshoes or skis. The Evenki people did hunt and eat wild reindeer, but not their domesticated reindeer, which they kept for milk.” ref

Evens

“The Evens are a people in Siberia and the Russian Far East. They live in regions of the Magadan Oblast and Kamchatka Krai and northern parts of Sakha east of the Lena River. According to the 2002 census, there were 19,071 Evens in Russia. According to the 2010 census, there were 22,383 Evens in Russia. They speak their own language called Even, one of the Tungusic languages. The Evens are close to the Evenks by their origins and culture. Officially, they were considered to be of Orthodox faith since the 19th century, but the Evens managed to preserve different forms of non-Christian beliefs, such as shamanism. Traditional Even life is centered upon nomadic pastoralism of domesticated reindeer, supplemented with hunting, fishing, and animal-trapping.” ref

“The ancestors of the Evens were believed to have migrated from the Transbaikal area to the coastal areas of eastern Siberia. The economy was supplemented by winter hunts to obtain wild game. Hunters sometimes rode reindeer, sometimes moved along on wooden skis. The Even language, also known as Lamut, Ewen, Eben, Orich, Ilqan, is a Tungusic language spoken by the Evens in Siberia. It is spoken by widely scattered communities of reindeer herders from Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east to the Lena River in the west and from the Arctic coast in the north to the Aldan river in the south. Even is an endangered language with only some 5,700 speakers (Russian census, 2010). These speakers are specifically from the Magadan region, the Chukot region, and the Koryak region. The dialects are Arman, Indigirka, Kamchatka, Kolyma-Omolon, Okhotsk, Ola, Tompon, Upper Kolyma, Sakkyryr and Lamunkhin.” ref, ref

The “Old Debate” was Europe versus Siberia for a Proto-Uralic Homeland

“It has been suggested that the Proto-Uralic homeland was located near the Ural Mountains, either on the European or the Siberian side. The main reason to suppose that there was a Siberian homeland has been the traditional taxonomic model that sees the Samoyedic branch as splitting off first. Because the present border between the Samoyedic and the Ugric branch is in Western Siberia, the original split was seen to have occurred there too.” ref

“However, because the Ugric languages are known to have been spoken earlier on the European side of the Urals, a European homeland would be equally possible. In recent years, it has also been argued on the basis of phonology that the oldest split was not between the Samoyedic and the Finno-Ugric but between the Finno-Permic and the Ugro-Samoyedic language groups. The lexical level is argued to be less reliable, and lexical innovativeness (a small number of shared cognates) can be confused because of the great age of the division. For a long time, no new arguments for a Siberian homeland have been presented.” ref

“Both European and Siberian homeland proposals have been supported by palaeolinguistic evidence, but only those cases in which the semantic reconstructions are certain are valid. A Siberian homeland has been claimed on the basis of two coniferous tree names in Proto-Uralic, but the trees (Abies sibirica and Pinus cembra) have for a long time been present also in the far east of Europe. A European homeland is supported by words for ‘bee’, ‘honey’, ‘elm’ etc. They can be reconstructed already to Proto-Uralic, if Samoyedic is no longer seen as the first branch to split off.” ref

“More recently, loanword evidence has also been used to support a European homeland. Proto-Uralic has been seen as borrowing words from Proto-Indo-European, and the Proto-Indo-European homeland has rarely been located east of the Urals. Proto-Uralic even seems to have developed in close contact with Proto-Indo-Iranian, which is seen as having arisen in the Poltavka culture of the Caspian steppes before its spread to Asia.” ref

“The Lyalovo culture (ca. 5000–3650 BCE) has been equated with the Proto-Uralic urheimat, and the following Volosovo culture (ca. 3650–1900 BCE) with the Proto-Finno-Ugric urheimat. Some scholars believe that the culture of Lyalovo was in fact the Proto-Uralic urheimat and that its inhabitants spread Uralic languages to north-eastern Europe.” ref

“The Volosovo culture has been named the Bronze Age Successor Culture, a textile-ceramic culture that developed in the region between Upper Volga and lakes Ladoga and Onega. It was distinguished from other groups based on the traces of textile used for the production of ceramics, and spread southeast all the way to the central Volga, south to the entire river valley of the Oka, southwest to the northern shore of the Daugava, and northwest of Fennoscandia to Karelia, Finland, and northern Sweden and Norway. Known as the Seima-Turbino phenomenon, it was a culturally unified, extensive network of trade in copper and bronze. The traces of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon are found in a wide area that begins in Sweden and ends in the Altai Mountains.” ref

“However, Jaakko Häkkinen argues that the language of the Volosovo culture was not itself Uralic, but a Paleo-European substratum to Uralic, especially its westernmost branches, and identifies Proto-Uralic with the Garino-Bor culture instead.” ref

“The Volosovo region was invaded by the Abashevo cultural groups at about 2300 BCE. The latter buried their deceased in kurgans, and they are thought to have spoken a form of Indo-European ancestral to the Indo-Iranian languages and to have influenced the Volosovian vocabulary by introducing Aryan (Indo-Iranian) loan words. The Abashevo contributed to the fact that livestock farming and small-scale farming began to be practiced in the southern parts of the forest zone of Taiga.” ref

“It has been hypothesized that Pre-Proto-Uralic was spoken in Asia, on the basis of typological similarity with the Altaic Sprachbund and hypothetical early contacts with the Yukaghir languages. Aikio (2014) agrees with Häkkinen (2012) that Uralic–Yukaghir is unsupported and implausible, and that the common vocabulary shared by the two families is best explained as the result of borrowing from Uralic into Yukaghir. However, Aikio (2014) puts the date of borrowing much later, arguing that the loanwords he accepts as valid were borrowed from an early stage of Samoyedic (preceding Proto-Samoyedic; thus roughly in the 1st millennium BCE) into Yukaghir, in the same general region between the Yenisei River and Lake Baikal.” ref

“Archaeological continuity has long been used as the basis of an argument for linguistic continuity. The argument was advanced by Estonians Paul Ariste and Harri Moora in 1956. Just as long, as this kind of argumentation has also been heavily criticized. The oldest version of the continuity theory can be called the moderate or shallow continuity theory. It claims that linguistic continuity in Estonia and Finland can be traced back to the arrival of Typical Combed Ware, about 6,000 years ago. This view became mainstream in the multidisciplinary Tvärminne symposium in 1980. At the time, there seemed to be no serious linguistic results to contradict this archaeological view.” ref

“The continuity argumentation in the Uralic studies gained greater visibility in the 1990s, when the next step of the continuity theory was popularised (even though this line of reasoning had occasionally received airing). In the radical or deep continuity theory, it is claimed that the linguistic continuity in Finland could be traced back to the Mesolithic initial colonization, beyond 10,000 years.” ref

“However, in Indo-European studies, J. P. Mallory had already thoroughly scrutinized the methodological weaknesses of the continuity argumentation in 1989. In Uralic studies, it was also soon noted that the same argument (archaeological continuity) was used to support contradicting views, which revealed the method’s unreliability.” ref

“At the same time, new linguistic results appeared to contradict the continuity theories: the datings of Proto-Saami and Proto-Finnic and of Proto-Uralic (Kallio 2006; Häkkinen 2009) are both clearly younger than it was thought in the framework of the continuity theories. Nowadays linguists rarely believe in the continuity theories because of their shown methodological flaws and their incompatibility with the new linguistic results, but some archaeologists and laymen may still advance such arguments.” ref

The Modern View of a Proto-Uralic Homeland

“In the 21st century, linguistic arguments have placed the Proto-Uralic homeland possibly around the Kama River or, more generally, close to the Great Volga Bend and the Ural Mountains, although Petri Kallio, while agreeing with the placement of the homeland in Central Russia, prefers the Volga-Oka region further to the west. The expansion of Proto-Uralic has been dated to about 2000 BCE (around 4000 years ago), and its earlier stages go back at least one or two millennia earlier. Either way, this is considerably later than the earlier views of the continuity theories, which would place Proto-Uralic deep into Europe. Juha Janhunen suggests a homeland in eastern or central Siberia, somewhere between the Ob and Yenisei river or near the Sayan mountains in the Russian–Mongolian border region.” ref

“In 2022, a group of scholars presented evidence that the Proto-Uralic Homeland was located in Western Siberia and spoken by hunter-gatherers, later spreading along rivers into the Volga region, and subsequently expanding westwards and eastwards. The spread of Uralic languages may be in part due to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon, although no direct link between them can be made. The cultural technology of proto-Uralic can be described as “Neolithic”, as it included pottery but no vocabulary of food production. They note that Uralic and Indo-European may be sister languages, as proposed by Anthony and Ringe (2015), and that Proto-Uralic and Proto-Indo-European probably did not initially stand in direct geographical proximity. They also found that the vocabulary of the Samoyedic branch is often quite “un-Uralic” which may point to substratum among Samoyedic, although they did not find conclusive evidence for borrowings from an unknown language.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“N1c represents the western extent of haplogroup N, which is found all over the Far East (China, Korea, Japan), Mongolia, and Siberia, especially among Uralic speakers of northern Siberia. Haplogroup N1 reaches a maximum frequency of approximately 95% in the Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b) and Nganassans (all N1b), two Uralic tribes of central-northern Siberia, and 90% among the Yakuts (all N1c), a Turkic people who live mainly in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in central-eastern Siberia.” ref

Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b)

“The Nenets, also known as Samoyed, are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to northern Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2010, there were 44,857 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District stretching along the coastline of the Arctic Ocean near the Arctic Circle between Kola and Taymyr peninsulas. The Nenets people speak either the Tundra or Forest Nenets languages, which are mutually unintelligible. In the Russian Federation, they have a status of indigenous small-numbered peoples.” ref

“The Nenets language is on the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family, with two major dialects, Forest Nenets and Tundra Nenets. Ethnologue says that in Siberia, most young people are still fluent in Nenets, whereas in European Russia, they tend to speak Russian. Overall, the majority of native speakers are from older generations. UNESCO classifies Nenets as an endangered language. Some believe that the use of Russian and Komi is due to inter-ethnic marriages.” ref

“There are two distinct groups of Nenets sensu stricto, based on their economy: the Tundra Nenets (living far to the north) and the Khandeyar, or Forest Nenets. A distinct third group of Nenets, (Yaran people), has emerged as a result of intermarriages between Nenets and Izhma Komi people. The Samoyedic languages form a branch of the Uralic language family. According to one theory, they moved from farther south in Siberia to the northernmost part of what later became Russia sometime before the 12th century.” ref

“Their main subsistence comes from hunting and reindeer herding. Using reindeer as a draft animal throughout the year enables them to cover great distances. Large-scale reindeer herding emerged in the 18th century. They bred the Samoyed dog to help herd their reindeer and pull their sleds, and European explorers later used these dogs for polar expeditions, because they were well adapted to the arctic conditions. Tundra wolves can cause considerable economic loss, as they prey on the reindeer herds which are the livelihood of some Nenets families. Along with reindeer meat, fish is a major component in the Nenets’ diet. Nenets housing is conical yurt (mya).” ref

“They have a shamanistic and animistic belief system which stresses respect for the land and its resources. During migrations, the Nenets placed sacred items like bear skins, religious figures, coins, and more on a holy sleigh. The contents of this sacred sleigh are only unpacked during special occasions or for religious rituals (like sacrifices). However, only esteemed elders are allowed to unpack the sacred sleigh. They had a clan-based social structure. The Nenets shaman is called a Tadibya.” ref

Nganassans (all N1b)

“The Nganasans are a Uralic people of the Samoyedic branch native to the Taymyr Peninsula in northern Siberia. In the Russian Federation, they are recognized as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. They reside primarily in the settlements of Ust-Avam, Volochanka, and Novaya in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, with smaller populations residing in the towns of Dudinka and Norilsk as well. The Nganasans are thought to be the direct descendants of proto-Uralic peoples. However, there is some evidence that they absorbed local Paleo-Siberian population. The Nganasans were traditionally a semi-nomadic people whose main form of subsistence was wild reindeer hunting, in contrast to the Nenets, who herded reindeer.” ref

“The Nganasans first referred to themselves in Russian as Samoyeds, but they would also often use this term when referring to the Enets people and instead refer to themselves as “Avam people.” For the Nganasans, the term signified ngano-nganasana, which means “real people” in the Nganasan language, and referred to both themselves and the neighboring Madu Enets. However, in their own language, the Avam Nganasans refer to themselves as nya-tansa, which translates as “comrade tribe,” whereas the Vadeyev Nganasans to the East prefer to refer to themselves as a’sa which means “brother,” but also Evenk or Dolgan. The Nganasans were also formerly called Tavgi Samoyeds or Tavgis initially by the Russians, which derives from the word tavgy in the Nenets language.” ref

“The homeland of the Proto-Uralic peoples, including the Samoyeds, is suggested to be somewhere near the Ob and Yenisey river drainage areas of Central Siberia or near Lake Baikal. The Nganasan are considered by most ethnographers who study them to have arisen as an ethnic group when Samoyedic peoples migrated to the Taymyr Peninsula from the south, encountering Paleo-Siberian peoples living there who they then assimilated into their culture. One group of Samoyedic people intermarried with Paleo-Siberian peoples living between the Taz and Yenisei rivers, forming a group that the Soviet ethnographer B.O. Dolgikh refers to as the Samoyed-Ravens.” ref

“Another group intermarried with the Paleo-Siberian inhabitants of the Pyasina River and formed another group which he called the Samoyed-Eagles. Subsequently, a group of Tungusic people migrated to the region near Lake Pyasino and the Avam River, where they were absorbed into Samoyed culture, forming a new group called the Tidiris. There was another group of Tungusic peoples called the Tavgs who lived along the basins of the Khatanga and Anabar rivers and came into contact with the aforementioned Samoyedic peoples, absorbing their language and creating their own Tavg Savoyedic dialect. It is known that the ancestors of the Nganasan previously inhabited territory further south from a book in the city Mangazeya that lists yasak (fur tribute) payments by the Nganasan which were made in sable, an animal that does not inhabit the tundra where the Nganasan now live.” ref

“By the middle of the 17th century, Tungusic peoples began to push the Samoyedic peoples northward towards the tundra Taymyr Peninsula, where they merged into one tribe called “Avam Nganasans”. As the Tavgs were the largest Samoyedic group at the time of this merger, their dialect formed the basis of the present-day Nganasan language. In the late 19th century, a Tungusic group called the Vanyadyrs also moved to the Eastern Taymyr peninsula, where they were absorbed by the Avam Nganasans, resulting in the tribe that is now called Vadeyev Nganasans. In the 19th century, a member of the Dolgans, a Turkic people who lived east of the Nganasans, was also absorbed by the Nganasans, and his descendants formed an eponymous clan, which today, though linguistically fully Samoyedic, is still acknowledged as being Dolgan in origin.” ref

Yakuts (all N1c)

“The Yakuts, or the Sakha (Yakut: саха, sakha; plural: сахалар, sakhalar), are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts of the Krasnoyarsk region. The Yakut language belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages. The Russian word yakut was taken from Evenk yokō. The Yakuts call themselves Sakha, or Urangai Sakha (Yakut: Уран Саха, Uran Sakha) in some old chronicles.” ref

“Many researchers have concluded that the Yakut ethnogenesis was an admixture of Turko-Mongols migrating from Lake-Baikal and native Yukaghir and Tungusitic peoples residing around the Lena River. Okladnikov detailed this conceived admixture process as the following:

“…the Turkic-speaking ancestors of the Yakuts not only pushed out the aborigines but also subjected them to their influence by peaceful means; they assimilated and absorbed them into their mass… With this, the local tribes lost the former ethnic name and a proper ethnic consciousness, no longer separating themselves from the mass of Yakuts, and [were] not opposed to them… Consequently, as a result of the mixing with Northern aborigines, the southern ancestors of the Yakuts supplemented their culture and language with new features distinguishing them from other steppe tribes.” ref

“In 1996 Aleksei N. Alekseev and S. I. Nikolaeva-Somogotto alternatively proposed that Paleo-Asian and Samoyedic peoples populations instead intermarried with the incoming Turko-Mongols, for which there is some evidence. Traditional Yakut histories contain stories of the aboriginal peoples of Yakutia. From the subarctic Bulunsky and Verkhoyansky Districts accounts state that the Black Yukaghir descended from migrants pushed north from the Lena River. Related stories recorded in Ust’-Aldanskiy Ulus and Megino-Kangalassky District mention certain tribes leaving the region due to rising pressure from the incoming Yakuts. While some remained and intermarried with the newcomer, most went to the northern tundra.” ref

“The Ymyyakhtakh are an ancient people of the Lena River. A burial ground was excavated and anthropologists I.I. Gokhman and L.F. Tomtosova studied the human remains and published their results in 1992. They concluded that some of the Late Neolithic population took part in the formation of the modern Yakuts. The consistency of related artistic embellishments on the traditional clothing of the Buryat, Samoyed, and Yakut led one scholar to conclude they are related. Toponymic data of Yakutia indicates there was once a presence of Paleoasian and Samoyed habitation in the region. Vilyui Tumats reportedly practiced anthropophagy and seen as an “ethnocultural marker” of the Samoyedic peoples.” ref

“The Tumat stand out in Yakut tradition as a numerous and powerful society, with constant conflict once happening with them on the Vilyuy River. Their households were semi-subterranean with sod roofing and are comparable to traditional Samoyed dwellings. The term Doubo was used in medieval Chinese historical works in reference to the Sayano-Altai forest peoples. Vasily Radlov concluded that Doubo referred to the Samoyedic peoples. Doubo is additionally seen as the origin of the ethnonym “Tumat” by L. P. Potapov.” ref

“The Yakuts called the Tumat people “Dyirikinei” or “chipmunk people” (Yakut: Sдьирикинэй), arising from the Tumatian “tail-coat.” Bundles of deer fur were dyed with red ocher and sewn into Tumatian jackets as adornments. Tumat hats were likewise dyed red. This style was likely spread by the Tumatians to some Tungusic peoples. Similar clothing has been reported during the 17th century for the Evenks on the upper Angara and for Evens residing on the lower Kolyma in the early 19th century. Additionally there are many similarities between the clothing of the Tumats and Altaic cultures. Archeological work on Pazyryk culture sites have turned up both hats dyed red and tail-coats made of sables. While the “tails” were not dyed red, they were sewn with red-dyed thread. Stylistic and design choices are also comparable to traditional Khakas and Kumandin clothing.” ref

“Some peaceable interactions including intermarriage did occur with the Tumats. One such example is the life of Džaardaakh (Russian: Джаардаах), a Tumatian woman. She was renowned for her physical strength and martial repute as an archer. However, Džaardaakh eventually married a Yakut man and is considered a notable ancestor of the local Vilyuy Yakut. The origin of her name has been linked to a Yukaghir word for ice.” ref

“The ancestors of Yakuts were Kurykans who migrated from Yenisey river to Lake Baikal and were subject to a certain Mongolian admixture prior to migration in the 7th century. The Yakuts originally lived around Olkhon and the region of Lake Baikal. Beginning in the 13th century they migrated to the basins of the Middle Lena, the Aldan, and Vilyuy rivers under the pressure of the rising Mongols. The northern Yakuts were largely hunters, fishermen, and reindeer herders, while the southern Yakuts raised cattle and horses. The Yakuts engage in animal husbandry, traditionally having focused on rearing horses, mainly the Yakutian horse, reindeer and the Sakha Ynagha (‘Yakutian cow’), a hardy kind of cattle known as Yakutian cattle which is well adapted to the harsh local weather.” ref

Sámi

“The Sámi (also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Russia, most of the Kola Peninsula in particular. The Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, but these terms are regarded as offensive by the Sámi, who prefer the area’s name in their own languages, e.g. Northern Sámi Sápmi. Their traditional languages are the Sámi languages, which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.” ref

“Traditionally, the Sámi have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. Currently, about 10% of the Sámi are connected to reindeer herding, which provides them with meat, fur, and transportation. 2,800 Sámi people are actively involved in reindeer herding on a full-time basis in Norway. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sámi in some regions of the Nordic countries.” ref

“Speakers of Northern Sámi refer to themselves as Sámit (the Sámis) or Sápmelaš (of Sámi kin), the word Sápmi being inflected into various grammatical forms. Other Sámi languages use cognate words. As of around 2014, the current consensus among specialists was that the word Sámi was borrowed from the Proto-Baltic word *žēmē, meaning ‘land’ (cognate with Slavic zemlja (земля), of the same meaning).” ref

“The word Sámi has at least one cognate word in Finnish: Proto-Baltic *žēmē was also borrowed into Proto-Finnic, as *šämä. This word became modern Finnish Häme (Finnish for the region of Tavastia; the second ä of *šämä is still found in the adjective Hämäläinen). The Finnish word for Finland, Suomi, is also thought probably to derive ultimately from Proto-Baltic *žēmē, though the precise route is debated and proposals usually involve complex processes of borrowing and reborrowing. Suomi and its adjectival form suomalainen must come from *sōme-/sōma-. In one proposal, this Finnish word comes from a Proto-Germanic word *sōma-, itself from Proto-Baltic *sāma-, in turn, borrowed from Proto-Finnic *šämä, which was borrowed from *žēmē.” ref

“The first probable historical mention of the Sámi, naming them Fenni, was by Tacitus, about CE 98. Variants of Finn or Fenni were in wide use in ancient times, judging from the names Fenni and Φίννοι (Phinnoi) in classical Roman and Greek works. Finn (or variants, such as skridfinn, ‘striding Finn’) was the name originally used by Norse speakers (and their proto-Norse speaking ancestors) to refer to the Sámi, as attested in the Icelandic Eddas and Norse sagas (11th to 14th centuries). The etymology is somewhat uncertain, but the consensus seems to be that it is related to Old Norse finna, from proto-Germanic *finþanan (‘to find’), the logic being that the Sámi, as hunter-gatherers “found” their food, rather than grew it. This etymology has superseded older speculations that the word might be related to fen.” ref

“As Old Norse gradually developed into the separate Scandinavian languages, Swedes apparently took to using Finn to refer to inhabitants of what is now Finland, while the Sámi came to be called Lapps. In Norway, however, Sámi were still called Finns at least until the modern era (reflected in toponyms like Finnmark, Finnsnes, Finnfjord, and Finnøy), and some northern Norwegians will still occasionally use Finn to refer to Sámi people, although the Sámi themselves now consider this to be an inappropriate term. Finnish immigrants to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries were referred to as Kvens to distinguish them from the Sámi “Finns”. Ethnic Finns (suomalaiset) are a distinct group from Sámi.” ref

“The languages of the Sámi, like other Uralic languages, are believed to originate from the region along the Volga, which is the longest river in Europe. The Sámi have their roots in the middle and upper Volga region in the Corded Ware culture. These groups presumably started to move to the northwest from the early home region of the Uralic peoples in the second and third quarters of the second millennium BCE. On their journey, they used the ancient river routes of northern Russia that had been in use for millennia. Some of these peoples, who may have originally spoken the same western Uralic language, stopped and stayed in the regions between Karelia, Ladoga, and Lake Ilmen, and even further to the east and to the southeast. The groups of these peoples that ended up in the Finnish Lakeland from 1600 to 1500 BCE later “became” the Sámi.” ref

“The Sámi language first developed on the southern side of Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga and spread from there. When the speakers of this language extended to the area of modern-day Finland, they encountered groups of peoples who spoke a number of smaller ancient languages, which later became extinct. However, these languages left traces in the Sámi language. As the language spread further, it became segmented into dialects. The geographical distribution of the Sámi has evolved over the course of history.” ref

“From the Bronze Age, the Sámi occupied the area along the coast of Finnmark and the Kola Peninsula.[32] This coincides with the arrival of the Siberian genome to Estonia and Finland, which may correspond with the introduction of the Finno-Ugric languages in the region. Petroglyphs and archeological findings such as settlements, dating from about 10,000 BCE can be found in Lapland and Finnmark, although these have not been demonstrated to be related to the Sámi people. These hunter-gatherers of the late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic were named Komsa by the researchers. The Sámi have a complex relationship with the Scandinavians (known as Norse people in the medieval era), the dominant peoples of Scandinavia, who speak Scandinavian languages and who founded and thus dominated the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden in which most Sámi people live.” ref

“While the Sámi have lived in Fennoscandia for around 3,500 years, Sámi settlement of Scandinavia does not predate Norse/Scandinavian settlement of Scandinavia, as sometimes popularly assumed. The migration of Germanic-speaking peoples to Southern Scandinavia happened independently and separate from the later Sami migrations into the northern regions. For centuries, the Sámi and the Scandinavians had relatively little contact; the Sámi primarily lived in the inland of northern Fennoscandia, while Scandinavians lived in southern Scandinavia and gradually colonized the Norwegian coast; from the 18th and especially the 19th century, the governments of Norway and Sweden started to assert sovereignty more aggressively in the north, and targeted the Sámi with Scandinavization policies aimed at forced assimilation from the 19th century. Before the era of forced Scandinavization policies, the Norwegian and Swedish authorities had largely ignored the Sámi and did not interfere much in their way of life.” ref

Uralic languages

“Proto-Uralic is the reconstructed language ancestral to the Uralic language family. The language was originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE (estimates vary), and expanded to give differentiated protolanguages. New research has pushed the Proto-Uralic homeland east of the Ural Mountains and deep into Siberia.” ref

“The Ural Mountains or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan. The mountain range forms part of the conventional boundary between the regions of Europe and Asia.” ref

“The Uralic languages form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25 million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (which alone accounts for more than half of the family’s speakers), Finnish, and Estonian. Other significant languages with fewer speakers are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt, Sami, Komi, and Vepsian, all of which are spoken in northern regions of Scandinavia and the Russian Federation.” ref

“The name “Uralic” derives from the family’s original homeland (Urheimat) commonly hypothesized to have been somewhere in the vicinity of the Ural Mountains. Finno-Ugric is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, though Finno-Ugric is widely understood to exclude the Samoyedic languages. Scholars who do not accept the traditional notion that Samoyedic split first from the rest of the Uralic family may treat the terms as synonymous.” ref

“The Uralic family comprises nine undisputed groups with no consensus classification between them. (Some of the proposals are listed in the next section.) An agnostic approach treats them as separate branches. All Uralic languages are thought to have descended, through independent processes of language change, from Proto-Uralic. The internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Doubts about the validity of most or all of the proposed higher-order branchings (grouping the nine undisputed families) are becoming more common.” ref

• “Finnic (Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic)
• Hungarian (Magyar)
• Khanty (Ostyak, Handi, Hantõ)
• Mansi (Vogul)
• Mari (Cheremis)
• Mordvinic (Mordvin, Mordvinian)
• Permic (Permian)
• Sami (Saami, Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
• Samoyedic (Samoyed)” ref

“There is also historical evidence of a number of extinct languages of uncertain affiliation:

• Merya
• Muromian
• Meshcherian (until 16th century?)

Traces of Finno-Ugric substrata, especially in toponymy, in the northern part of European Russia have been proposed as evidence for even more extinct Uralic languages.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The shaman is, above all, a connecting figure, bridging several worlds for his people, traveling between this world, the underworld, and the heavens. He transforms himself into an animal and talks with ghosts, the dead, the deities, and the ancestors. He dies and revives. He brings back knowledge from the shadow realm, thus linking his people to the spirits and places which were once mythically accessible to all.–anthropologist Barbara Meyerhoff” ref

“Haplogroup N1c is found chiefly in north-eastern Europe, particularly in Finland (61%), Lapland (53%), Estonia (34%), Latvia (38%), Lithuania (42%), and northern Russia (30%), and to a lower extent also in central Russia (15%), Belarus (10%), eastern Ukraine (9%), Sweden (7%), Poland (4%) and Turkey (4%). N1c is also prominent among the Uralic-speaking ethnicities of the Volga-Ural region, including the Udmurts (67%), Komi (51%), Mari (50%), and Mordvins (20%), but also among their Turkic neighbors like the Chuvashs (28%), Volga Tatars (21%) and Bashkirs (17%), as well as the Nogais (9%) of southern Russia.” ref

“Note that N1c was known as N3 and N1c1 as N3a in the official phylogeny prior to 2008. N1c represents the western extent of haplogroup N, which is found all over the Far East (China, Korea, Japan), Mongolia, and Siberia, especially among Uralic speakers of northern Siberia. Haplogroup N1 reaches a maximum frequency of approximately 95% in the Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b) and Nganassans (all N1b), two Uralic tribes of central-northern Siberia, and 90% among the Yakuts (all N1c), a Turkic people who live mainly in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in central-eastern Siberia.” ref

“N1c1a (M178): found in Siberia (Khakass-Daurs)

• N1c1a1 (L708): found in Siberia (Anayins)
  • N1c1a1a (P298): found in Siberia (Yakuts)
    • N1c1a1a1 (L392, L1026): Finno-Ugric branch; found throughout north-east Europe
      • N1c1a1a1a (CTS2929/VL29): Baltic-Finnic branch
        • N1c1a1a1a1 (L550): West Finnic branch; found around the Baltic Sea and in places settled by the Vikings
          • N1c1a1a1a1a (L1025)
            • N1c1a1a1a1a1 (M2783): found especially in Balto-Slavic countries, with a peak in Lithuania and Latvia
            • N1c1a1a1a1a2 (Y4706): found mostly in Finland and Scandinavia
        • N1c1a1a1a2 (CTS9976): East Finnic branch; found among the Chudes (Karelia, Estonia)
        • N1c1a1a1a2a (L1022)
      • N1c1a1a1a2a1 (Z1936): Finno-Permic branch; found in the Volga-Ural region and among the Karelians and Savonians
        • N1c1a1a1a2a1a (Z1925): found in Finland, Lapland, Scandinavia, the Volga-Ural, and the Altai
          • N1c1a1a1a2a1a1 (Z1933)
            • N1c1a1a1a2a1a1a (Z1927): found among the Karelians
            • N1c1a1a1a2a1a1b (CTS8565): found among the Savonians
        • N1c1a1a2b (L1034): Ugric branch; found in and around Hungary and in Central Asia (Kazakhstan)
• N1c2 (L666): found in Russia
  • N1c2a (M128)
  • N1c2b (P43): found in the Volga-Ural region.” ref

“Haplogroup N is a descendant of East Asian macro-haplogroup NO. It is believed to have originated in Indochina or southern China approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Haplogroup N1* and N1c were both found at high frequency (26 out of 70 samples, or 37%) in Neolithic and Bronze Age remains (4500-700 BCE) from the West Liao River valley in Northeast China (Manchuria) by Yinqiu Cui et al. (2013).” ref

“Among the Neolithic samples, haplogroup N1 made up two thirds of the samples from the Hongshan culture (4700-2900 BCE) and all the samples from the Xiaoheyan culture (3000-2200 BCE), hinting that N1 people played a major role in the diffusion of the Neolithic lifestyle around Northeast China, and probably also to Mongolia and Siberia.” ref

“Ye Zhang et al. 2016 found 100% of Y-DNA N out of 17 samples from the Xueshan culture (Jiangjialiang site) dating from 3600–2900 BCE, and among those 41% belonged to N1c1-Tat. It is therefore extremely likely that the N1c1 subclade found in Europe today has its roots in the Chinese Neolithic. It would have progressively spread across Siberia until north-eastern Europe, possibly reaching the Volga-Ural region around 5500 to 4500 BCE with the Kama culture (5300-3300 BCE), and the eastern Baltic with the Comb Ceramic culture (4200-2000 BCE), the presumed ancestral culture of Proto-Finnic and pre-Baltic people.” ref

“There is little evidence of agriculture or domesticated animals in Siberia during the Neolithic, but pottery was widely used. In that regard, it was the opposite development from the Near East, which first developed agriculture and then only pottery from circa 5500 BCE or 7,522 years ago, perhaps through contact with East Asians via Siberia or Central Asia.” ref

“Mazurkevich et al. 2014 confirmed the presence of N1c in the Comb Ceramic culture with a sample from the Late Neolithic site of Serteya II in the Smolensk region of Russia, near the Belarussian border, which dates from the middle of 3rd millenium BCE.” ref

“The Bronze Age Indo-European Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture (3200-2300 BCE) progressively took over the Baltic region and southern Finland from 2,500 BCE (see History of haplogroup R1a). The merger of the two groups, Indo-European R1a, and Proto-Uralic N1c1, gave rise to the hybrid Kiukainen culture (2300-1500 BCE). Modern Baltic people have a roughly equal proportion of haplogroup N1c1 and R1a, resulting from this merger of Proto-Uralic and Northeast Indo-European populations.” ref

“Lamnidis et al. 2018 tested six 3500-year-old individuals from the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia and identified the two male samples as members of N1c-L392. They were all autosomally close to modern Uralic people from the Volga-Ural region and possessed typically Uralic mtDNA lineages (C4b, D4e4, T2d1b1, U4a1, U5a1d, Z1a1a).” ref

“Another study by Saag et al. 2019 reveals that Siberian autosomal DNA and Y-haplogroup N1c were absent from Bronze Age Estonia and did not arrive there until the Iron Age, around 500 BCE. This shows that N1c tribes first expanded to Belarus then Finland and the Kola peninsula before eventually moving into Estonia several millennia later.” ref

“The phylogeny of N1c1 shows that the split between Balto-Finnic and Uralic (including Ugric) peoples took place around 4400 years ago, downstream of the L1026 mutation, almost exactly at the start of the Kiukainen culture. The Uralic branch (Z1934) formed first, around 4200 years ago, followed by the Ugric branch (Y13850) and eventually the Balto-Finnic branch (VL29) 3600 years ago. The latter immediately split between the Chudes (CTS9976), to the east, and the Balto-Finns (L550) to the west. The Fennoscandians (Y4706) and Balts (M2783) bifurcated around 2600 years ago.” ref

Uralic N1c1

“Haplogroup N1c1 is strongly associated with Uralic peoples, which is divided in the following families:

• Samoyedic (Nganasans, Enets, Nenets and Selkups)
• Finno-Ugric
  • Finno-Permic
    • Baltic Finnic (Finnish, Karelian, Estonia, etc.)
    • Permic (Komi, Udmurt)
    • Saamic (Saami)
    • Volgaic (Mari, Mordvin)
  • Ugric
    • Hungarian
    • Ob-Ugric (Khanty, Mansi)” ref

“The Samoyedic branch on northern Siberia split the earliest and corresponds to the N1c1* and N1c1a* subclades. Permic and Volgaic speakers have a wide diversity of N1c subclades, including N1c1a1 (L708), N1c1a1a (L1026), N1c1a1a1 (VL29), N1c1a1a2a (Z1935), and N1c2b (P43).” ref

“The Baltic Finnic branch appears to have evolved from the migration of the N1c1a1a1 (VL29) subclade from the Volga-Ural region to Karelia, Finland, and Estonia. VL29 and its subclades are also the variety of N1c1 found in Balto-Slavic populations, confirming that the R1a branch of Indo-Europeans absorbed and later spread N1c1 lineages around central and eastern Europe.” ref

“The Ugric branch, which comprises Hungarian, as well as the Khanty and Mansi languages of western Siberia, corresponds to the N1c1a1a2b (L1034) subclade.” ref

Did Ural-Altaic languages originate with haplogroup N in the Manchurian Neolithic?

“If haplogroup N1c, found mainly among Uralic speakers today, did originate in the Manchurian Neolithic, together with other subclades of haplogroup N, it would explain that Uralic languages are related to Altaic languages like Turkic and Mongolic languages and, more distantly also Korean, Japanese and Ainu, as Y-haplogroup N is indeed the unifying factor between all these populations. Some linguists have argued that Korean, Japanese, and Ainu are language isolates, as they only vaguely resemble other Altaic languages. Tellingly, these populations also have the lowest percentages of Y-haplogroup N – only 3% for the Koreans and 2% for the Japanese, as opposed to 10 to 25% for the Mongols and Buryats, and frequencies between 30% and 90% for most Turkic-speaking Siberians.” ref

N1c among the Avars

“In 568 CE, a Steppe tribe known as the Avars arrived in Pannonia and claimed all the former land of the Gepids and Lombards as their own. They established the Avar Khaganate and frequently raided the territories of the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans until 628. Although the origin and language of the Avars is unknown, it has been postulated that they were a Turkic or Mongolian people from East-Central Asia. Csáky et al. (2020) tested the remains of five elite male Avars from the Carpathian basin dating from the 7th century, and three individuals belonged to the N1c1-F4205 (the other two were Q1a). This branch was formed some 4500 years ago and is found among modern Buryats, Mongols, Turks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Mansis, Khantys but also Hungarians and Poles. The Avars’ maternal lineages in the study were predominantly Siberian and East-Central Asian in origin (mtDNA haplogroups C4a, C4b, D4i, F1b1, M7c1b2b, R2, Y1, and Z1a), but comprised a substantial minority of East European lineages too (H5a, H8, J1b, T1a1b, U5a1, U5b1b – all typical of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe). This is consistent with an origin in the Eurasian Steppe.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Finland’s Horned Shaman and Pre-Horned-God at least 4,500 years ago?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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12,000 – 2,000 Years Ago – Indigenous-Scandinavians (Nordic)

Nordic Paganism/Shamanism, Vikings, White Supremacists Imaginary, Viking Past, Neo-paganism/Neo-Shamanism, and Far-right Religio-Nationalism Bigotry

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Norse did not wear helmets with horns?

Judging the Lack of Goodness in Gods, Even the Norse God Odin

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Bridging the Boreal Forest: Siberian Archaeology and the Emergence of Pottery among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of Northern Eurasia

New Rituals and Violence with the appearance of Pottery and People?

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Globalization and the Emergence of Ceramic-using Hunter-gatherers in Northern Eurasia

Kama culture

“The Kama culture (also known as Volga-Kama or Khutorskoye from finds near the Khutorskoye settlement) is an Eastern European Subneolithic archaeological culture from the 6th-4th millennium BCE. The area covers the Kama, Vyatka, and the Ik–Belaya watershed (Perm and Kirov regions, Udmurtia, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan). The definition of the Kama culture remains a subject of debate. Initially, it was determined by O.H. Bader on the territory of the Middle Kama, where he distinguished two phases: Borovoye (Borovoy Lake I) and Khutorskoye. A.Kh. Khalikov united the finds with Pitted and Combed Ware of the Lower and Middle Kama into one Volga-Kama culture. I.V. Kalinina, based on the study of ceramics came to the conclusion that there are two distinct cultures: Volga-Kama pitted pottery and the Kama combed pottery. There are no signs of agriculture. The economy was based on hunting and fishing.” ref

“A.A. Vibornov identified three stages of development in the Kama culture, and V.P. Denisov and L.A. Nagovitchin joined the Kama Neolithic finds with combed ceramics into a single Khutorskoye culture, synchronous with the Poluden culture in the Ural Mountains. Its comb-decorated pottery is similar to that of the Upper Volga culture. The Kama culture is also culturally close and genetically related to the Volosovo culture. There are scholars who also believe that the culture is related to the Dnieper-Donetsk. The pottery is thick-walled, egg-shaped, both round- and pointed-bottomed. The stone and bone inventory of the pottery culture demonstrated a Mesolithic character. It is heavily ornamented with comb stamp designs, vertical and horizontal zigzags, sloping rows, braids, triangles, and banded comb meshes. Kama culture is noted for its metal work and handicrafts. The instruments for work include scrapers, sharpeners, knives, leaf-shaped and semi-rhombic arrowheads, chisels and adzes, and weights.” ref

“In its development, the Kama culture passed through three stages: early (sites: Mokino, Ust-Bukorok, Ziarat, Ust-Shizhma), middle (sites: Khutorskaya Kryazhskaya, Lebedynska), and late (sites: Lyovshino, Chernashka). The culture was formed in the early Neolithic on a local Mesolithic substrate under the influence of southern steppe populations. In the southern regions, the influence of the nearby forest-steppe cultures of the Middle Volga can be observed during the whole period of existence. In the developed Neolithic a population of Trans-Ural origin penetrates in the upper and middle Kama. In this period there are formed local variants: Verkhnekamsk, Ikska-Belsky and Nizhnekamsk. At the end of the Neolithic the lower Kama falls under the influence of the Early Eneolithic Samara culture.” ref

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Samara culture

“The Samara culture was an Eneolithic (Copper Age) culture that bloomed around the turn of the 5th millennium BCE, located in the Samara bend region of the upper Volga River (modern Russia). The Samara culture is regarded as related to contemporaneous or subsequent prehistoric cultures of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, such as the Khvalynsk, Repin, and Yamna (or Yamnaya) cultures. The Proto-Indo-European homeland is often linked to one or more of these cultures.” ref

The Samara culture was an Eneolithic culture of the early 5th millennium BCE at the Samara bend region of the middle Volga, at the northern edge of the steppe zone. It was discovered during archaeological excavations in 1973 near the village of Syezzheye (Съезжее) in Russia. Related sites are Varfolomievka on the Volga (5500 BCE), which was part of the North Caspian culture, and Mykol’ske, on the Dnieper. The later stages of the Samara culture are contemporaneous with its successor culture in the region, the early Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE), while the archaeological findings seem related to those of the Dniepr-Donets II culture (5200/5000–4400/4200 BCE).” ref

“The valley of the Samara river contains sites from subsequent cultures as well, which are descriptively termed “Samara cultures” or “Samara valley cultures”. Some of these sites are currently under excavation. “The Samara culture” as a proper name, however, is reserved for the early Eneolithic/Copper Age of the region. Pottery consists mainly of egg-shaped beakers with pronounced rims. They were not able to stand on a flat surface, suggesting that some method of supporting or carrying must have been in use, perhaps basketry or slings, for which the rims would have been a useful point of support. The carrier slung the pots over the shoulder or onto an animal. The decoration consists of circumferential motifs: lines, bands, zig-zags or wavy lines, incised, stabbed, or impressed with a comb. These patterns are best understood when seen from the top. They appear then to be a solar motif, with the mouth of the pot as the sun. Later developments of this theme show that in fact the sun is being represented.” ref

“The culture is characterized by the remains of animal sacrifice, which occur over most of the sites. There is no indisputable evidence of riding, but there were horse burials, the earliest in the Old World. Typically the head and hooves of cattle, sheep, and horses are placed in shallow bowls over the human grave, smothered with ochre. Some have seen the beginning of the horse-sacrifice in these remains, but this interpretation has not been more definitely substantiated. We know that the Indo-Europeans sacrificed both animals and people, like many other cultures.” ref

“The graves found are shallow pits for single individuals, but two or three individuals might be placed there. Some of the graves are covered with a stone cairn or a low earthen mound, the very first predecessor of the kurgan. The later, fully developed kurgan was a hill on which the deceased chief might ascend to the sky god, but whether these early mounds had that significance is doubtful. Grave offerings included ornaments depicting horses. The graves also had an overburden of horse remains; it cannot yet be determined decisively if these horses were domesticated and ridden or not, but they were certainly used as a meat-animal. Most controversial are bone plaques of horses or double oxen heads, which were pierced.” ref

“The graves yield well-made daggers of flint and bone, placed at the arm or head of the deceased, one in the grave of a small boy. Weapons in the graves of children are common later. Other weapons are bone spearheads and flint arrowheads. Other carved bone figurines and pendants were found in the graves.” ref

“A male buried at Lebyazhinka, radiocarbon dated to 5640-5555 cal BCE, and often referred to by scholars of archaeogenetics as the “Samara hunter-gatherer” (a.k.a. I0124; SVP44; M340431), appears to have carried the rare Y-DNA haplogroup R1b1* (R-L278*). This individual is ancestral for both haplogroup R1b1a1 and R1b1a2 and is therefore basal to both the predominantly western Eurasian R-M269 lineage and the mainly non-European R-M73/M478 lineage. Mathieson et al. (2015, 2018) found that a male hunter-gatherer from Lebyanzhinka, Samara Oblast who lived ca. 5650-5540 BCE belonged to Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a and mitochondrial haplogroup U5a1d.” ref

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34,000 years old Paleolithic dog or wolf dog hybrid skulls found in Razboinichya Cave, Siberia

Dog Domestication, Shamanism, and Emerging “Sacred Companion” Mortuary Rituals between 33,000 to 12,000 years ago?

The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art